


Home

by wirewrappedlily



Series: Miracle [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Author is a madwoman, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, disjointed timeline, don't ask just read it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-28
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2019-01-25 10:42:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 63,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12529508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wirewrappedlily/pseuds/wirewrappedlily
Summary: “Hm, ‘reckless idiot scientist’ soundsterriblyfamiliar.”





	1. NOW by Grace Mitchell

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, two notes on this: 
> 
> 1) Beacon was time leaps in one direction, told through Steve’s POV. This is going to leap all over the fucking place, and be from Tony’s. 
> 
> 2) Sorry, darlings, to make it clear: this first chapter is not immediately following the car crash, it’s before Tony and Steve even get together. You can yell at me for that if you want to, but keep in mind I might just draw it out before aforementioned time leaps mosey around to getting to post-crash. ;)

In retrospect, being down in the lab with a fever had not been the smartest of his decisions recently; even Tony Stark could admit that much. Still, he was fairly certain that he was not the cause of the massive explosion that sent him crashing through the wall of windows that overlooked the elevator bay to the labs in the Tower. 

"He's lucky he's not minced meat or a bug on the windshield." 

"Clint, as amusing as he would find that observation, please shut up." 

"Why, Nat...holy god, you're actually concerned? About the man who had a bomb _with his name on it_ land in his lap in the middle of a Afganistani desert, was then held by a terrorist cell for _months_ with his damn heart kept beating by nothing more than a jury-rigged car battery, and finally nearly blew himself to smithereens to then trek through said Afganistani desert. I'm pretty sure the man quite literally cannot be killed." 

"While you have a good point, I'm not the only one who might not like hearing about what collision with that glass could've done."

"Right...Sorry, doc." 

"You actually do make a really good point, Clint. Tony was tossed out of his own penthouse window by Loki and I don't think he had a scratch on him from that." 

"Ever notice how the big bads haven't tried to really kill him since then necessarily; they just kinda...aim for incapacitation, and if they get death, then bonus?" 

"I...I had not noticed that until now, no..." 

"I'm telling you guys; Tony Stark is harder to kill then a damn cockroach, and the bad guys know this." 

"I'm sure he'd love that flattering likening, Clint. Your chances of getting a bolo-arrow for Christmas are diminishing." 

"There's no proof as to whether or not coma patients hear while they're under." 

"Thanks, doc--" 

" _However_ , if you expect me not to relay this conversation, then you're going to need to give me a good reason not to." 

"Extortion! How fun! And in front of Cap, too. Cap, aren't you gonna protect innocent little me from being taken advantage of?" 

"Don't bother, Steve; Clint got himself into this mess, please force him to get himself out of it." 

"My demands are simple, Clint: my silence in exchange for your word you won't smuggle Tony out before he should actually be discharged." 

"Oh, c'mon! Sleeping Beauty here wouldn't--...Okay, yes, fine; he would bribe me to get him out of here, but it's not like I'd...okay, yes, I'd probably do it. Fine. I won't smuggle him out of Medical before all the poking and prodding is completed. Besides, it's not like Cap would let me. You okay over there, tall blond and scarily silent?" 

"Clint, let's you and I leave the doc and Steve alone for a bit and see if we can't find something worth eating without input from our resident food-finder." 

"I still don't know how he does that--hey! Think JARVIS would be able to channel Tony's food-finding superpowers?"

"Hey, Cap...truth to tell, you're starting to worry me a little...more than I'm worried about him, which is saying something, all things considered. I know you don't like seeing any of us like this, but...Cap, you haven't slept in two days. This is Tony-levels of unhealthy. You haven't left the room without a guarantee that one of us is gonna be in the room the whole time you're gone. This is overkill, and you know it." 

"I...Until we figure out what did this, what caused this...he's not safe. I'll feel better when I know he's safe." 

"JARVIS's systems caught an anomaly in electrical energy moving like a person, but--" 

"That lab was supposed to be safe. The Tower's supposed to be our stronghold--" 

"Please don't mention that to Tony when he wakes up; I'm scared to consider what he'd do in response to anyone questioning the safety of the Tower, let alone what he'd do in response to _you_ questioning it." 

"Jesus, that's not what I...It's not his responsibility to keep everyone on this team safe, it's mine." 

"Your logic is faulty there, Cap. We _all_ take care of each other, or this thing won't work. The reason I ask that you don't mention your concern to him is that his logic is as faulty as yours, and odds are he'd run himself to death to try to up his game. That Tower was built to be our stronghold, yes; and it still is. JARVIS has learned the signature of whatever it was that attacked him; he'll be able to detect any further threat. All we have left is figuring out a way to defend against it with our resident genius lying in that bed...and you running on fumes isn't going to help with that." 

"Do we know what it was? Who did it, or sent it?" 

"You'd have to ask JARVIS and Phil about that, Steve. I've been focusing on making sure that guy will actually wake up and heal properly.

"I did notice that...Thank you, by the way." 

"I care about him, too, Steve. We all do; don't let Clint fool you...but you care more than the rest of us, don't you?" 

"Don't..." 

“Why? ...Not to press, it's totally your business--but, honestly; why not go after what you want?” 

“I...What I’ve said to him—“ 

“He forgave you, long before just about anyone else there did...save Thor, but I expect that’s down to Thor’s low bar on being a bit of an ass.” 

“Thor was...confused, more than anything. He came to me later, asked me why I would accuse someone brave enough to have already stood against him of not having a true warrior spirit. I didn’t have an answer for him.” 

“He’s stopped referring to you strictly as Cap or Rogers, you know. That’s when I knew that he’d gotten himself over it. You became Steve.” 

“I...I stopped calling him Stark the minute he fell out of that portal, even in my head. When you caught him, and landed, and he was so fucking still—“ 

“This is a lot like that, this stillness. I know. I’d offer to roar to try to snap him out of it, but I’m inclined to agree with the staff that he needs to rest for as long as his body keeps him under, if only because it’ll make sure he doesn’t squirm enough to pull his stitches.” 

“God, he is actually that bad at sitting still, isn't he?” 

“His brain doesn’t work well with inaction, no. But at least it’s never boring.” 

“I think I might miss boring. Everything is so loud and flashing and disorienting here. A million feeds pulling you in a million different directions, all demanding attention at once.” 

“And those are feeds people have chosen; Tony has had no choice in getting pulled apart since he was a kid. I'm not that kind of doctor, but I'd be inclined to conjecture that that might be why he's so bad at slowing down.” 

“He talks to you...I know he does...has he ever—does he ever mention Howard and Maria?” 

“This is not a topic you want to get into, Steve; take that as my warning. And my answer is that I keep my confidences, because I know he’s doing the same.” 

“I missed all of it but somehow all I really want to know is what happened that turned Howard from the reckless idiot scientist I knew to a man his own son won’t talk about.” 

“Hm, ‘reckless idiot scientist’ sounds _terribly_ familiar.” 

“That’s half my problem...first time I saw Tony, just for a moment, I thought I was looking at Howard—more well-preserved than a jar of honey Howard, but still...he’s just as flashy, and I’m pretty sure he’s even more intelligent. How does someone so similar—“ 

“You’ve got access to all our files, including his, right?” 

“Yeah...” 

“Then you know that the trauma sustained during his stint in Afghanistan was not the first time he’s sustained...trauma.”

“I...I didn’t go that far back through his medical records. I could barely get through the details of what happened in Afghanistan and the side-effects.” 

“If you can, take a look, and tell me what your conclusions are on the matter, Steve. He and I have never jumped off that particular bridge when we came to it, but to me...to me, his files tell me that he was not the original one to plant the opinion that his life meant less, and it’s a seed that has deep roots.” 

“Fuck...” 

“Yeah, that about sums it up, doesn't it? When I first looked through his medical records...I may have turned a little green around the edges.” 

“Bruce, I—“ 

“I’m fine now, Cap. I just...needed to process. Tony'd be the first person to tell you that he clearly survived, much to Justin Hammer's chagrin.” 

“I don't think I—How could you find a way...You said you’ve never talked to him about it?” 

“No, and I won’t lie; I may have compartmentalized it, but for the sake of my control, I’m not sure I will ask about it. Tony’s been more of a friend to me than I’ve ever experienced before, and knowing for certain that it happened to him...if I'm being honest, I think I’d lose it.” 

“I would, too.” 

“I should probably go track down Nat and Clint to make sure they’re letting Phil and JARVIS work in peace. It’s not a hundred percent one way or the other on whether or not he’ll be able to hear it, but I’m told that talking to coma patients certainly doesn’t hurt.”

“Bruce? ...Thank you. For the ear, and the perspective.” 

“Good luck, Cap.” 

“Remember when it was all I could do to get him and Miss Potts and Colonel Rhodes to let me anywhere near you? I’m glad times have finally goddamned changed. ...This is strange. No stranger than being a block of ice for eighty years, I will admit that, but it’s still completely weird to see you so _still_. I feel like I’m...like I’m on tenterhooks; or like I’m being stood up. Not that we had a date—or even plans, just...you’re usually the one I go to to make plans with, and if you don’t wake up soon, then I might even get desperate and start taking Clint on walks through Brooklyn with me. You know, if it wasn’t for the cuts and bruises, and it being you, I’d almost think you were just peacefully sleeping. I’m pretty sure I know what your reply to this would be if you were awake to hear it—despite the fact that you constantly surprise me—I’m sorry that I wasn’t with you down there, that I wasn’t there to help, even if I couldn’t have helped. You’re always getting into trouble like this, on your own, and I just once want to be there for you. You deserve not to have to face these things alone, Tony, I swear you do, and any and all disagreement on the matter will result in me just telling you to fight me. 

“...I’ve seen a few shows where they read instead of just talking, I feel like you’d rather listen to that than just listen to me babble, considering you barely listen to me anyway. Granted, I don’t have any proper books with me, but Nat was telling me about this app that I can put on my phone and download and read books with it. I think I’ve seen a beat up copy of a book called The Eyre Affair in your lab. Let’s...It’s a series, that’s promising. Yeah, that car is hard to mistake, this is definitely the book in your lab, isn't it? I...I hope you don’t mind me reading this to you, even though you’ve already read it. If you do...you could always wake up, and tell me not to. If you don’t, I’ll take that as a go-ahead. ...No? Fine; don’t say I didn’t at least give you a fighting chance.

“Chapter one: _A woman named Thursday Next_...”


	2. Business by X Ambassadors

Tony trailed quietly into their apartment, wishing somewhat futilely that Steve would be waiting for him right in the door with a hug and a drink he no longer let himself crave. 

“Bathroom.” Steve’s voice called through the silent apartment, and Tony frowned to himself, shuffling simply because he was too damn defeated to pick up his feet. “Pepper called me, mentioned you might need to unwind.” 

Tony, he would be the first to admit, was a hedonist of the highest order, and Steve was not standing in front of the marble sink, nor was he in the spa Tony just barely passed off as a shower; no, Steve was in the tub that was the size of a small pool, most of his pale skin covered by bubbles scented with sandalwood and jasmine, steam rising off both the tub and the arm he had hanging out. Tony very nearly whimpered at the sight, suddenly needing to be naked if only to climb in there with the love of his life. “Remind me to send Pepper a gift basket.” 

Steve smiled fondly, shifting slightly in the tub, getting ready to have Tony in there with him. “Sit with your back to my front. I asked Clint for some pointers on how to get someone who works too hard to relax—“ 

“‘Cause his answers wouldn’t be horrifying.” 

“—and did you know he’d posed as a masseuse once for an op?” 

“Mmm, so you’re gonna give me a back rub?” 

“First I’m gonna wrap around you and pretend that you weren’t basically threatened into leaving for Hong Kong tomorrow, then a back rub.” 

“She mentioned that, huh?” 

“Pepper likes to give me warning about you being out of town since the first time you went out of town, you didn’t tell me at all and I panicked.” 

“And that was before we got all romantic and co-dependant...” Tony sighed, settling back into Steve’s arms a little gingerly; the tightness in his shoulders as he lowered himself into Steve’s clutches speaking of something poorly thought out either in the lab or on the training mats recently. “You’re unfairly comfortable.” Tony told Steve accusatorily, closing his eyes as Steve’s hands slid down until their fingers wrapped together. “For looking like Michaelangelo’s wet dream, you’re way too nice to cuddle with.” 

Steve’s laughter was soft, husky, and Tony wanted to save the sound to his phone, because human memory wasn’t enough. “So, what happened?” 

“Oh, the usual. The potential merger is hanging by a thread because the CEO and founder rather sexistly is demanding that my CEO isn’t good enough, I have to be the one to close the deal—and he’s too old to come to me, so I have to go to him.” Tony shook his head slightly where it was cradled against Steve’s shoulder, “If it were up to me, I would be insulted and turn it from a merger into a takeover, but Pepper says that’s a good chunk of the reason why I no longer run the company.” Steve chuckled, and Tony grinned, eyes still closed as he talked to his boyfriend. “So, I go to Hong Kong tomorrow...hey, you never made it there, did you?” 

“Hm? To Hong Kong—“ 

“To any of Asia—and Russia doesn’t count as Asia, it’s a whole other continent unto itself at this point.” 

“No, I have not been to Asia.” Steve confirmed, shaking his head slightly at Tony’s qualifications. 

“Wanna come with me?” 

Steve stiffened slightly for about a split second before he relaxed, and Tony could practically hear his grin as he replied properly, “I...I don’t have any missions. And it’s not like SHEILD couldn’t send if they needed me. Yes, I would love to come with you, Tony.” 

Tony shifted around until he had an angle where he could pull Steve into a kiss, long and languid in the hot water. “We’re gonna have so much fun.” He promised, voice soft and husky as Steve’s hands trailed over his thigh and down his waist. Steve’s hand was broad, his fingers long and blunt instruments when he had been born with long, thin fingers to suit the scrawny artist. Tony pressed forward to kiss him over and over again, even as he pushed into the touches, too. Steve slid his tongue into Tony’s mouth, banding an arm around Tony’s hips as Tony shifted to settle into straddling Steve. Carding his hands into Steve’s hair, Tony shuddered as Steve’s fingers found the places he most liked with merely a skim of pressure, nothing more than a tease. Sucking on Tony’s tongue, Steve brought his legs up in the bath water, knees bent so that Tony had something to lean back on when they finally broke the kiss, and Tony had to try to get his head to stop spinning. “I fucking love you, Steve.” Tony ground out, already sounding wrecked, and then Tony’s heart caught painfully in his chest, realization sweeping through him that he’d never really said those words before; not just to Steve, but in general. 

Steve didn’t look affected by the words, not in the way he touched Tony or looked at him, breathless and flushed with the heat of the bath and the heat of the kissing, “I love you, too, Tony. So fucking much.” 

Tony gave in when Steve urged him down to lick back into his mouth, his touch firmer as he kissed all sense out of Tony Stark. 

Breathing heavily, Tony chose to hide his face in Steve’s neck this time, draped over him like a blanket. “After this, pizza or pasta?” 

“You’re not gonna make me go down to dinner with the family?” Tony mumbled, a little surprised. 

“I really don’t want either of us to put any clothes on until tomorrow.” 

Tony laughed, pressing a kiss to the hollow beneath Steve’s ear. “I am so onboard with your nudity it isn’t even funny, but if pizza, then I will have to put on pants at the least, and that barely counts as ‘least’, babe.” 

“Then pasta.” Steve determined, nipping at Tony’s shoulder lightly. “No clothes.” 

“Oh, if only the others knew you’re the one that’s gung-ho for nudity in this relationship.” Tony laughed. 

Steve drew him out of hiding, pressing an easy kiss to his lips, firm and quick, “To he fair, you are usually the one trying to talk me into as much time spent naked as possible.” 

“That’s wanting _you_ naked. You’re a work of art, and I am nothing if not appreciative of art...” Grinning cheekily as Steve shot him a look, Tony settled into him again, relishing in Steve’s skin against his. 

“I’m not the only masterpiece in this tub, then, Tony.” 

Tony let out a guffaw, and Steve gave his ass a squeeze, “Oh, right, that is a work of art. I will agree with you on that one.” 

“Not the only thing I was talking about.” Steve replied, laying his hand over the back of Tony’s neck, thumb rubbing easy circles into the base of his skull. “What should I pack for Hong Kong?” 

“I’ve never really been a tourist there. Only ever kind of passing through on business. Pack for warm weather, and we’ll figure it out from there.” 

Steve hummed happily as Tony kissed him again, and the delicious expanse of warm skin beneath Tony’s hands was too tempting to resist for long. Tony trailed kisses down Steve’s throat, nipping at his collarbones once he’d reached the arch of bone, then soothing the tiny sting away with his tongue. “I-I was supposed to be the one comforting and distracting you...” Steve told him, and Tony chuckled as he sucked delicately at a particularly sensitive spot he’d found on Steve’s neck. 

“You are very distracting, Steve.” Tony informed him, letting his hands slide low on his waist, well into the water. “Sex in the bathtub isn’t necessarily the best of ideas, however. It can get really messy.” 

“What about making out in the bathtub?” Steve countered, a grin just this side of coy on his mouth. “What if we stay here for a while longer, and you let me wash your hair and give you a back rub, then we move this to the bedroom.” 

“Do I get to keep kissing you?” 

“Of course.” Steve laughed, “I mean, it’s only fair, because I can’t seem to stop kissing you, either.” Curling down to get in range, Steve stole a kiss, smirking as Tony chased his mouth when it was too quick for his liking. “Do we have a deal?” 

Tony nodded, and Steve pulled him into his chest, hugging him there tightly. Pressing a kiss to Tony’s slicked-back hair, he lifted a handful of water to the back, dissolving the product Tony had used to tame his curls out of his hair that morning. Shivering, Tony listened to the steady beat of Steve’s heart beneath his ear, steady and slow as another handful of hair of water was carefully swept through his hair, Steve’s fingers a very welcome pressure on his scalp like a balm to the near-constant headache pulsing through his temples. Steve’s powerful fingers rubbed gently but firmly through his hair, and Tony couldn’t help but moan at the relief that careful massage brought, melting into Steve’s chest before he could help it. Steve swept a handful of water over Tony’s back to warm him up, then wrapped his hand around Tony’s thigh, shifting him around again until he was back-to-front once more, Steve reaching for the shampoo and lathering the eucalyptus and mint-scented soap in his palms. Tony felt boneless as Steve’s hands began to work the soap through his hair in sure strokes, skirting over places Steve knew hurt more than helped, and gently pressing his knuckles into the places where that kind of pressure would work to ease the pain. 

“If I could, I don’t think I’d let you out of bed to go to these meetings anymore.” Steve murmured, hands working even as he frowned at the tension he found riding Tony’s neck and shoulders. “Think I could pull the national icon card and get away with it?” 

Tony chuckled, a hand wrapping around Steve’s knee as the suds were just as carefully washed from his hair. “I think you could probably get away with it if my CEO was literally anyone but Pepper.” 

Steve snorted, “Yeah, you just had to go and put someone so scarily efficient in the seat of power.” 

“To be fair, at the time, I wasn’t expecting to live for much longer.” Tony knew those were the wrong words the second he said them, because Steve couldn’t help but freeze behind him, his breath catching as he did. It didn’t last long, because Steve wouldn’t let it, but Tony couldn’t have missed it if he tried. “I did stop that from happening, though, Steve.” 

“Yeah, you did.” Steve agreed, voice still rough. “You would now, too, wouldn’t you?” 

Tony squeezed Steve’s knee, turning his head once the rush of suds was rinsed clear of his hair, “I’m not an easy man to kill, Steve. You know that.” Tony found Steve’s hand, wrapping his own around it and raising it to press a kiss to the skin at the base of his palm, just under his thumb. “I know you’ve heard the story. I don’t think going over it again will really help either of us. But you have to know, Steve; I’m not going to let you down.” 

“I think you’re missing the mark, Tony.” Steve told him, “It’s not that I would be...There’s nothing that would break me quite like losing you would. I’m scared of that more than anything else. I know that you...you have trouble trusting that the team—that everyone is here for you, and you don’t have the best track record when it comes to asking for help. But I have to know what you’re fighting against, even if you think I can’t help you fight it.” 

“Steve—“ 

“Just...promise me that you’ll try. That’s all I can really ask.” 

“I will try.” Tony wasn’t sure exactly what he was promising to give a try to, but if it eased the crinkle of Steve’s forehead, he’d do whatever it took. It was strange for him, this instinctual need to ease Steve’s mind, to do everything he could to make Steve happy. Even during his relationship with Pepper, he had relied heavily on being able to talk his way out of it. With Steve, he was scrambling not to get in trouble in the first place, if only to keep the corner of Steve’s mouth from pulling down, which was usually the only sign of true disappointment Steve would make before quietly pulling whoever had caused it aside to talk about it. Clint had the running record of the number of frowns caused, and Tony didn’t want to even come close to his score. It would be easier to win at an arm wrestling match with Thor sans suit than to deal with having made Steve unhappy. 

Sighing, Steve shifted his grip on Tony, kissing him in a way that chased everything out of his head. All the numbers and schematics running in the background were screeching to a halt as Steve kissed him like they were having a conversation with that one touch. Tony felt his hands shake as he wrapped his arms around Steve’s shoulders, and Steve gently led the kiss of, planting a string of soft, chaste kisses to Tony’s mouth even as he let Tony get his breath back. “I promise not to get too mad when you forget to tell me you’re in danger and fighting an army when you’re only one man.” 

"To be fair, I have a record of still winning against an army when it's only little old me standing against them." 

"I will give you that." Steve replied, "I just wish you hadn't had to fight quite so many armies on your own." 

"Says the man who tried to fight literally every asshole in 40s-era New York not only on his own, but _severely_ under any of their weight classes." 

"I had backup. Not really willing backup, because Buck would have preferred I not get into those fights, but all the same." Steve defended, laughing despite himself. 

"Babe, if by some freak Loki accident I ended up in one of those back alleys, I'm pretty sure I'd put whichever bully you had bearing down on you through a fucking wall. You're that difficult to resist." Tony missed the look of speculation, but the pause was enough to tip him off. "Would it be considered cheating if I were to flirt with you in the past?" 

"Dear god, don't even go there." Steve groaned, "I can't even keep my hands off you now; you flirting with me in 1945 would probably actually kill me, my heart would literally give out." 

Tony laughed, nuzzling under Steve's jaw and pressing kisses to his throat, "Good thing I know CPR." 

"What a way to waste my first kiss! Having a heart attack from you flirting, then getting my first kiss stolen by mouth-to-mouth resuscitation." 

"Would it sweeten the deal any if I promised to slip you a bit of tongue?" 

Steve's laughter was echoing off the marble walls, and Tony couldn't stop himself from grinning if he tried. "Please stop. I can't even begin to imagine what it'd do to me if you were to so much as wink at me back then." 

Tony hummed gently, trailing his fingers over Steve's shoulder, "I'm pretty sure I'd get myself killed doing that. Bucky would take one look at your face and murder me."

Steve traced his fingers over Tony’s shoulder blade, eyes far away as he imagined what it could have been like to meet Tony when he’d been the scrawny art student. Tony could almost pick the thoughts out of his head when he got like that; and the thoughts that seemed to be presiding were not good ones. 

“Hey, stop.” Tony ordered softly, trailing a fingertip over the furrow between his brows, thankfully sud-free, “If we had met back then; if I’d been alive before you got all Herculean, I’d still have fallen in love with you.” 

“I wasn’t worth a second glance back then—if any of the attempts Bucky made at getting me a date taught me anything, it’s that.” 

“Fuck that.” Tony said harshly, scowling, “Fuck them. They weren’t looking if they didn’t fall for you, Steve. So what you were skinny? Your smile is still one of my favourite features, and I have photographic evidence that that hasn’t changed. You were so fucking full of fight me that your bravery bordered on stupidity, and you were gorgeous because of it!” Steve was wearing his doubtful smile, and Tony made a sound of complete frustration before yanking him into a kiss. “Even if I had no idea, Steve, all I would need to see would be you standing in one of those back alleys, choosing to fight even though you’ll lose, because you’re fighting for something you believe in. Do you have any idea how much that makes me want to _be_ something you believe in? To know that even if your back is to the wall, and you know you’ll lose, that you would still fight for me?” 

“You have to know that I do believe in you.” Steve breathed, banding an arm tight around him as if he was going to try to make a break for it. “I love you, Tony; I would fight for you no matter what it came to. You have to know that by now.” 

Tony’s fingers brushed along the long line of Steve’s neck, kissing him slowly instead of answering, which Tony knew was the best way to convey the answer Steve wanted to hear least. 

Steve held him tight, and Tony curled into it, “I need to do better.” 

“You’re not the problem, Steve. I promise you.” 

“You’re not a problem either, Tony.” Steve’s voice was just this side of rough with his vehemence. Tony tsked in the back of his throat, shaking his head as he pulled Steve into another slow kiss. “You aren’t,” Steve insisted breathlessly, and got another kiss for his efforts, this one with a languid roll of tongue that had Steve’s whole body tighten with want. “It feels like you’re trying to bribe me into saying you are.” 

Tony chuckled, the sound a low rumble that made Steve’s pupils blow even larger, barely a ring of blue left as he stared at Tony in his lap. “I am well aware that Phil's given you several Talks about getting involved with me. I know I'm a problem." 

"Phil was not trying to talk me out of getting involved with you." Steve whispered, "If anything, he was telling me that if anyone did try to talk me out of it, I needed to fight harder." Tony pulled back from the necklace of kisses he was laying the groundwork on, his brow furrowed in confusion, and Steve sighed, squeezing his hips. "He told me that there would be no end to the number of people who don't want me with you, for one reason or another...and he told me that if I was sure you were what I wanted, then I had to be willing to stand up against everything those people threw at us; I had to be sure, because it wouldn't be worth it if I wasn't. I told him I've been sure since the first time we fought together." Tony snorted, shaking his head, and Steve squeezed his hips again, harder this time, " _I knew then_. Why do you think it was you I chose to fight with when we were under the sceptre's influence?" 

"Easy target." Tony answered without missing a beat, and Steve let out a growl. "You can't say I'm not." 

"Easy target for an idiot, maybe." Steve replied, "Anyone who thinks they can take you in a fight is _wrong_." 

"Flattery will get you everywhere, Steven." Tony laughed magnaminously, leaning in for another kiss. Steve reached for the soap while Tony was nuzzling into his chest, the water still more than warm enough to be comfortable, but Steve had to have been feeling oddly eager to get Tony into bed at that point. Tony was more than okay with that plan, loose and relaxed as Steve’s strong, sure hands lathered over him, digging gentle pressure into sore spots Tony had not been aware were quite that tense, and running reverent fingers over Tony’s scars. Tony shuddered as Steve found one of the scars that went deep enough to have caused nerve damage, his breath catching as Steve’s fingers found just the right force of pressure to send the nerves tingling, trying to process information the nerves were no longer formatted to take. Steve ducked down to Tony’s neck, pressing a line of kisses over this jugular and sucking a mark just under his jaw, too high to be easily hidden by Tony’s collar and just low enough to be plainly visible. Tony would laugh at him about it later; too busy right then to make a comment as Steve’s soapy hands did more groping than soaping, and Tony was completely down for that. 

“Tell me about Hong Kong.” Steve asked muffledly, sucking gently enough not to leave marks past the sudden flush of red beneath his skin. 

“We’re going to get a ridiculous hotel room, and at this point I don’t much care about anything else.” Tony panted, his patience non-existent when Steve was so close to losing his own iron grip. 

“You are the one who told me bathtub sex is not the best idea.” Steve reminded, laughing as Tony squirmed slightly into his touch. 

“I’m reconsidering my position on that in order to—“ Steve cut him off as if he knew exactly where Tony was going with that train of thought and didn’t want him to get there, replacing the hushing finger caught against Tony’s lips with his mouth after just a moment. Tony chuckled into the kiss and let himself sink into the slide of Steve’s mouth over his, the stress of the day melting out of him like magic. “Thank you so much for this, Steve.” 

“Any time.”


	3. Reflections by MisterWives

Steve was watching him, Tony could tell. 

He wasn’t watching Tony with any kind of lust or horror, which were the two emotions Tony was used to in his uninvited analyzation. Steve wasn’t even particularly analytical in his gaze; Tony couldn’t see any tactician gears turning in that gorgeous head of his. It was like Steve’s eyes found Tony every time they had nowhere in particular to look. It happened more than Steve probably would have been comfortable knowing about, but Tony didn’t mind that state; couldn’t when he didn’t mind the stares of want or disgust or measurement for what Tony Stark could do for the one staring. 

Just a week before, Steve had gotten drunk on Asgardian ale and kissed him. He’d then spent the intervening time doing everything in his power to chase Tony as Tony had given him every inch of space he could. Tony did not get it, but it was an emotions thing, so that may have been par for the course if Tony really thought about it. Steve was insistent about it, though; where he’d voluntarily gone down into the workshop before, now Tony could barely get him out of the lab unless Tony himself was leaving it. 

It made Tony just a little wary of the other shoe dropping; of time running out on this armistice they had going wherein things were good. Tony expected, based on findings gathered through countless studies over the course of the last 42 years, that Steve would hit critical mass with the patience he seemed to have managed to glean from the span between their introduction on the Helicarrier and the Avengers moving in. Critical mass had been due to hit over a month before—of course, adding in the variable of Steve’s possible attraction to him, the calculation spat out the information that if Steve was not the outlier he was shaping up to be, then Tony would have a relationship with him for another twenty minutes, give or take. 

Steve blinked, coming back into reality and the second his gaze refocused on Tony, a matinee idol grin split across his features like a desert sunrise. Tony almost stumbled under the onslaught of what he could only call joy, feeling vaguely like Happy had managed to land a sucker punch to his solar plexus. Tony could only smile in return, fighting tooth and nail against the flutter of schoolgirl butterflies that suddenly flushed over him the second he realized that that was what that weird sensation in his chest stemmed from. It was ridiculous: Tony had been Pepper Potts’ boyfriend; had had trysts with some of the most beautiful men and women in the world, and yet one super soldier was making him feel...giddy? Was giddy the right word? 

Anyway, Steve was actually looking at him now, and was...happy was the only way to describe it. He looked as if having Tony standing five feet away was making his whole day. 

The happiness was not, however, stopping him from looking horribly tired, and Tony felt concern hit him like a train. Steve did not need much sleep, everyone knew, but he did need sleep, every night, just like most humans (including Tony, though he would not admit it). Steve looked so tired, in fact, that he appeared to be swaying slightly on his feet. “Hey, soldier. What’s going on?” Tony asked before he could stop himself; knowing full well Steve wasn’t about to tell him why he wasn’t sleeping. 

“Are you busy?” 

“For you? Never.” Tony smiled saucily to try to bury the lead, but Steve didn’t appear to really notice, still happily looking at him. 

“I...wanted to see if you’d like to come with me to dinner tomorrow night. And then maybe a show?” 

Tony was fairly sure his brain made the slight crunching sound of a system trying to eat itself because of the information it was expected to process. 

"Lin Manuel Miranda sent me some tickets...he said he wouldn't even send 'em to you. You wanna go?" 

Things fell into place, and Tony rearranged the equation to compensate; Steve's friends were dead, and Tony was convenient. 

"I'd like to go on a date with you." Steve told him slowly, like he was approaching a startled colt, his blue eyes deep enough that Tony felt like he was sinking into them and wouldn't be able to kick his way back up to the surface, "Pepper mentioned that it'd probably be a good idea to tell you that straight. Before you get too deep in the math." 

"Wh--Pep has some splainin' to do." 

"Will you go on a date with me?" 

"Yes." Tony's answer snapped out of his mouth before Steve even finished the question, and Steve flushed gorgeously, his smile wider and brighter than it had been, which was so unlikely that Tony would have thought it defied all laws of the universe. "Yeah...I'll go on a date with you. Tomorrow night?" 

Steve nodded jerkily, "Where do you want to go to dinner?" 

"Steak. I'll take care of it. Show starts at eight?" Steve nodded, and Tony couldn't help the fond grin that took over his features. 

"Good." Steve looked unbearably pleased, "Good. I'll..." 

"Steve--Before we do this--" 

"Don't. No calculations. No expectations...no thinking. I'd love to promise you that we're gonna be fine, but that's not going to stop you from running through every possible scenario. So I'm just going to tell you this: I like you, different than I've ever liked anyone. I want to take a chance. And I can promise that if that chance doesn't work out, then you and me...we'll find a way. We always do." Steve reached out, fingers brushing over his forearm so gently that Tony felt gooseflesh erupt everywhere. "We work. I don't know how, or why, and it may not add up, but we work." 

"We work." Tony echoed, and Steve looked so sure that every piece of contradicting evidence, every scrap of doubt whether it was supported by evidence or not was swept aside. "We'll figure it out." 

It was two in the morning before Tony’s head fully kicked back online, the hazy daydreams of getting to kiss Steve for real finally clearing out as he remembered the way Steve had looked; resolute, unyielding—so tired that it made Tony physically ache as he snapped back to his senses. 

“J, I need you, buddy. You’ve been keeping that eye on everyone, right?” 

**”Of course, sir. Clint has—“**

“I need you to save that report on birdbrain for now, snookums. I need to...why does Steve look as if he hasn’t slept in a month?” 

Tony was fairly certain he already knew the answer to that. He’d been trying to quietly adjust things to help deal with Steve’s past; utilizing JARVIS to turn up the heating in his apartment, replacing the soft mattress with one that was nearly solid and had an integrated heating system, reinforcing the doors to take a hit should they get a call out while Steve was spending time at home. He’d been trying to help Steve realign his reflexes so that he no longer had to concentrate not to rip a door off its hinges when opening the door; he’d been working on making things that could withstand it if he did use that kind of force, though he could only do that so much. But the point was, Tony knew that Steve was still struggling with the weight of who he had become, and what he had seen. Tony had first-hand knowledge how difficult it was to chase away your nightmares, and was intimately familiar with those nightmares getting worse; if he could do _anything_ to save the super-soldier, he would. Even if it meant fighting the demons in Steve's head. 

**"Captain Rogers' nights have been difficult for the last week. He has awoken from every attempt at sleep unsure of his surroundings and screaming for his friend, Sergeant Barnes, or yourself. I have thus far attempted to alleviate the situation, but as of yet, no viable solution has presented."**

"When did he last sleep soundly?" Tony asked, his heart twisted into knots in his chest. 

**"Seventeen days ago, sir. Correlation with the most recent attempt on your life seems likely."**

"Jesus..." Tony breathed. 

**"Steve has given me permission to divulge this should anyone inquire--"**

"It's bad enough that he's concerned about his performance on the field, then." Tony surmise, and did not need JARVIS to confirm, "I'm not worried about him in the field. He fought fucking Nazis in the middle of Russia's boreal forests on no sleep. I'm concerned for his well being." 

**"And I am sure he will be touched, sir. He is, however, currently having an episode, and all attempts to wake him have failed."**

Tony was moving before JARVIS had even finished relaying that information; the code to override speed controls on the elevator between the labs and his or Bruce's apartments landing him either at his or at Bruce's apartments, and considering it was gone three in the morning by now and Bruce smashed with particular prejudice when Avengers' business awoke him, Tony landed in his own apartment, running through his silent, empty rooms to get to the access to the communal spaces. He got to Steve's door before he remembered that he'd installed old, non-electronic locks because he'd figured Steve would feel safer that way. 

"Move." Growled a tired, angry voice behind him, and if only for the fact that Clint had a habit of being too light on his feet for his own good, Tony did not jump out of his skin. Tony shuffled out of the archer's way as the man dropped to his knees and pulled out what had been Tony's prototype of lockpicks for Clint and Natasha. "JARVIS, you owe me." 

**"I'll mark it against your tab, Agent.”** The sarcasm dripping from that statement sent a stab of pride through Tony’s chest, compartmentalized almost as quickly as it appeared as Steve’s locks clicked open under Clint’s grumbling. 

“Thanks.” Tony breathed to both JARVIS and Clint, practically knocking the archer over in his haste to get to Steve.

Clint watched Tony disappear into the darkened apartment, sighing as he rolled the lockpicks back up and stowed them away. 

“Steve?” Tony had stopped dead in front of the closed bedroom door, his hands shaking as they laid against the sturdy wood, stopping himself short because he knew this was not what people were supposed to do, and still he couldn’t help but chase after any way he could find to try to help. 

The only response Tony got was a broken moan of his name, as if Steve were still caught in a crushing dream and Tony’s voice only conjured images of Tony being in his hellscape with him. Tony didn’t so much open the door as burst through it, heedless to whether or not he actually broke anything in getting it open. Steve was on the floor, tangled in his blankets and drenched with sweat and the metallic reek of fear. He was practically writhing with every breath he took, and Tony nearly tripped over himself rushing to him; then stopped short again as his brain helpfully replayed that horrifying night he’d nearly killed Pepper because of his dreams. 

“Steve, you’re having a bad dream.” 

“Tony...” the agony in his name was enough to make Tony’s chest clench. 

“I’m right here; we’re safe, we’re in the Tower. You live in that big, ugly building in New York now. Steve, you’re safe.” 

The waking was just as violent as Tony had feared, but he wasn’t anywhere in range. Steve’s water glass shattered as it hit the ground when his back impacted with his nightstand, and Steve’s hand found a shard of glass, blue eyes that were blind to his surroundings hardened with a steel that spoke of war. 

“Hey there, handsome.” Tony murmured, and Steve’s eyes flicked from his face down to his chest as Tony crouched down well enough away to make an escape if he had to. Tony’s hoodie had fallen open, the glow of the arc reactor barely muffled by the thin cotton undershirts Tony favoured in the summer. Steve’s eyes caught on that orb of light, and every ounce of tension seemed to flood out of his body at once, tears building and breaking as he dropped the glass and scrambled forward, mindless of the other shards as he pushed himself forward. 

Tony wasn’t used to physical affection quite like this; Steve pulling him into his arms and breathing him in as if he’d been drowning again. Steve was shaking, gasping for breath, and Tony didn’t know how to do this, but he wasn’t about to let that stop him. Tony’s hands stopped shaking as he threaded one through Steve’s hair, the other gentle but firm as he rubbed slow circles into Steve’s shoulders. 

“Breathe, Steve. Just breathe. I’m right here with you. You’re gonna be fine. We’re both safe.” Tony kept talking, low and calm as Steve’s locomotive breathing steadied and his shaking began to subside. Steve’s grip on him didn’t loosen, though. Steve ducked his head down into Tony’s throat, his fingers so tight on the fabric of Tony’s hoodie that he was nearly pulling it off of Tony’s shoulders. “Steve, you with me?” 

Steve nodded, and his grip finally began to loosen, “S-sorry.” 

“I broke into your apartment. Full disclosure.” Tony’s grip on Steve tightened instead, and Steve laughed. “You’ve been keeping you troubles a secret. The point of having friends is complaining to them about your troubles, Steve. You should have told me.” 

“I‘ve read...this happens to a lot of guys back from a war—“ 

“Yeah. Or not back from war. This can happen to guys who got kidnapped in Afghanistan, too.” Tony told him, “And if you’ve been reading, you should know that struggling through it on your own is not the healthiest of reactions.” 

Steve stayed silent, his hold on Tony an easy thing. “I have nightmares...I wake up, and sometimes it’s so dark, so quiet, that it’s like I’m at the bottom of the ocean.” 

“JARVIS and you tried to have light.” Tony didn’t need to ask, he knew JARVIS would have tried everything he could. 

“Didn’t help.” Steve’s head shifted to look down at the orb of light shining from Tony’s chest. “This helped, though.” 

There were tears gathered on his lashes, and Tony felt his insides twist. “Yeah, it’s difficult to get it too dark with me around.” 

Steve looked up at him, his cheeks a delicate pink, and Tony rubbed a thumb along that flush, “The second I saw it was you calling to me, I knew I was safe. I remembered I was home.” 

“You’re in one of the safest places on the planet.” Tony assured him, and Steve nodded. “Let’s get these off you.” Tony reached down, carefully disentangling Steve from the amorous boa constrictor that had been his blankets. Steve and he stood on shaky legs, collapsing onto the bed as soon as they got that far. “You wanna talk about it?” Tony asked, carefully avoiding all thoughts about Steve’s grip on his hand. 

“Not much to tell.” Steve answered tightly. Tony gave him a look, and Steve smiled shyly, “It was...the ocean. But I wasn’t the only one there.” 

Tony’s hands folded around Steve’s more tightly, rubbing warmth into his fingertips. “Me?” Steve nodded shakily, and Tony squeezed just a little tighter, then moved his hand to rest his fingers against the pulse in his throat. “Still warm. Who else?” 

“Peggy...Bucky,” Steve’s tight voice was almost ashamed, and Tony felt dizzy at the implication that Steve held him in anywhere near the regard that he held Aunt Pegs or Bucky Barnes. “You...I read your file. The report of what..." Steve stopped, swallowing, the sweep of gold that was his fan of lashes nearly resting on his cheek as he brought himself to ask the question, "what happened, when everything went down with Stane." The hand that Tony wasn't holding anymore was clenched into a fist, a muscle working in Steve's jaw, and Tony's brain connected dots because that's what it did.

"You saw me with a gaping hole where my flashlight's meant to be." Tony surmised, then immediately put together that the reason Steve focused on the light before he focused on Tony's face was the absence of the light in his dream; followed by the very silly idea that Steve may not be helped by light, but might be helped by a light that resembles his. Tony considered, and just as quickly discarded, whether he could stand to have Steve's hands near the arc reactor, as if touching the light would help either of them. "I'm okay. So are you." 

"Logically, I know that. JARVIS tells me that you're okay...Doesn't stop the fear." 

Tony hummed, considering the state of Steve's sleep patterns, and the way Steve kept holding his hand, a small part of his brain wondering when he started being so comfortable--being so okay with someone's fingers in his.


	4. Jenny by WALK THE MOON

Tony was the godson of Margaret Carter. He'd been cared for for a good deal of his life by Edwin and Ana Jarvis. His mind was his main weapon, but it was by no means the only in his arsenal. 

The plan unfolded around him as if it was a Second Sight to what would happen next; every movement tight, controlled, and so bound with his sheer rage that the calculations had to be redrawn to compensate for the amount of force he didn't mean to be using. 

Natasha had been teaching him to fight since before he knew her real name; Clint had been training with him since Tony goaded him out of the shell left in the aftermath of Loki's mind control and Coulson's purported death. Tony Stark was one of the single deadliest men in the world, and as he allowed that to sink in for the men attempting and failing to swarm them, Tony couldn't help but let a slow, deadly smile take over. 

Tony had been taken hostage from a "family dinner" in a restaurant that honestly had not been equipped in any way to handle his family. But that was of a lesser concern as a man he'd already half-blinded roared and charged at him. Tony reacted before he had to process the series of commands to do so, his hand striking at the man's windpipe in such a way that he crumpled like an old paper. Following through the movement, Tony allowed his elbow to connect with the eye socket of the man still trying to restrain him, back-handing him hard enough that he sprawled into the feeble attempts to stand made by the one he'd broken half the ribs of. 

It was not the restaurant's fault that Thor had found out that Darcy was dating someone he'd already decided was unsuitable; and Darcy had had a thing for Tony, if misplaced, so he'd followed her when she'd stormed out of the restaurant after Thor had made her date cry. She’d been swept up with him, and if they laid a finger on her, he would personally teach them the meaning of regret. Before he could do that, however, he needed to get through the endless mess of goons who’d severely underestimated Tony Stark. 

Admittedly, hand-to-hand combat was not and had never been his milieu, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t at the very least mildly proficient. Certainly proficient enough to thoroughly rattle the idiots that thought that neglecting to bring a gun into a room with an ex-arms dealer would keep them safe. True, he was very good at taking the guns bro g pointed at him, but not having a gun to steal wasn’t about to slow him down, either. They had tried to tie him with actual ropes, as if that had worked for anyone who’d tried to kidnap him since he was six. Aunt Pegs had taught him how to get out of every knot there was with Dugan’s help after the third time he’d been kidnapped out from under his bodyguard, solely, she claimed, in order to ensure that they didn’t have to use any more resources to save him. 

Aunt Pegs had taught him to save himself, and had done her damnedest to save him if he needed it. 

“What were you thinking? I mean, really? Trying to kidnap _me_?” The goon he was addressing was shaking with fear as Tony kept him on his knees with a grip on his arm that needed just a touch more force to break it, which he felt was justified. The man’s nose was shattered, his buddies scattered around the room in various states of maimed. “I mean, it’s been done, man. Old news. So who paid you to do it?” 

"No one!" He coughed, and spat blood on the ground. 

"Bullshit." Tony growled, "Now, you idiots didn't just take me. That'd be bad enough. No, you fuckheads took Thor's second-favourite human, too. Your continued survival depends on whether or not I can talk Thor out of killing you. Give me a reason to even try." 

The cold, even cadence of his voice pierced through the fog, and the terror in his face was gratifying. “I-I don’t know w-w-who.” 

“Hm.” Tony hummed, idly applying that last ounce of pressure until the bone snapped like a twig. The scream of agony echoed off the walls, and Tony felt a grim satisfaction as he cocked his head, waiting. 

“All I kn-know is that some guy showed up a couple days ago looking for a crew to slow you down.” 

Tony didn’t wrench the arm out of its socket, his common sense screaming at him, “And what...was the ultimate target?” 

“I-I don’ know. No one does. ‘S not like we get paid enough to know!” 

Tony had to concede on that point, albeit grudgingly. He knocked the guy out, calculations of how long and how likely full recovery would take, and a curl of guilt settling in his chest at how fully he’d committed to fucking that man’s shit up. 

Sighing, Tony could easily make the educated guess that whatever was on the other side of the thick, metal door behind which they’d stuck him would be armed to the teeth and labouring under the assumption that Tony Stark could be faced easily when you were facing him down the sights of a sniper scope. 

Of course, they’d put a bag over his head and smashed a gun to his temple, but he’d been through more without even taking Afghanistan into consideration. He knew that they were forty minutes outside of the city; he knew they’d taken three double-backs within city limits, and that there was a gate surrounding what he was going to guess was a warehouse, but it’d been long-abandoned, and it hadn’t been manned when they got in, but likely would be now. 

In total, he and Darcy had been gone for around two hours. Natasha and Clint would likely have known something was up within twenty minutes. If whatever was going down was going down immediately, then they would have been without their best air support, and Steve would have had to use the solid-light shield generator Tony had built into his watch since the shield was in the Tower. Providing he’d managed to adapt to it as quickly as he had to everything else, Tony estimated that the calvary would arrive for Miss Lewis and himself in the next thirty minutes. 

“Darcy?” Tony bellowed, changing that the yelling and screaming of his thugs had lured hers into his clutches as thoroughly as it had seemed to. 

“Tony!” Darcy yelled back. 

“You alone?” 

“Yeah, did you—“ 

“The goons are all down for the count,” Tony told her, getting closer to the temporary wall that separated them. He could have broken it down, but it would be a tactical error to do so, because although he knew they would be coming, he wasn’t entirely sure when the Avengers would get there, and he’d rather not have injured himself breaking down a wall when he really didn’t need to. Just in case they took their time finding them. “Did they hurt you?” 

“Few bruises...” Darcy murmured, sounding sad and scared. “I head butted the guy they left to watch me, and I think I might have a concussion.” 

“Well then! These guys are going to die bloody, the Thor’s gonna bring ‘em back and crispy-fry them.” Tony commented idly, casting his gaze over the crumpled bodies arrayed, “You scared, Darce?” 

“I...Yeah, I am.” 

“You trust me?” 

“With my life.” 

“Then you’ll know that when I tell you we’re gonna get out of this, we are gonna get out of this. You an’ me, kid.” 

“Promise?” 

“Cross my 70-watt bulb, Darcy.” 

Tony didn’t have to hear it to know she giggled, and it by no means took a genius to figure out it was a giggle born of fear more than amusement. 

“Tell you what, Darce. Let’s you and me be big damn heroes and when it’s over, I’ll take you out on a date. A real one.” 

“You’re kidding, right? I don’t date guys that are taken, Tony. Even if it is a pity date.” 

“The ninja twins didn’t tell you? Pep dumped my ass like three months ago, Darce. I’m a free man.” 

“Bullshit.” Darcy replied with aplomb, and Tony pulled a face at the wall, “But if I get your significant other to agree, Stark, you can take me to dinner, and try not to make me wish I could put out after.” 

Tony didn’t have time to question what the hell she was talking about, a hail of bullets coming through the closed doors as the patience of the sniper ran out. Tony bit back a grin and counted the shots, waiting for his opening. 

Instead of hearing the idiot run out of bullets, he heard the idiot scream as he was thrown from his perch, and Tony was out of the door before he could stop himself from questioning it. Darcy was standing on the riser they’d set up as a perch, looking rather cluelessly at the gun as she turned away from the broken man on the ground. “He was so busy shooting at you, I figured...might as well be brave and stupid.” 

Tony manipulated the controls on the riser and it slowly began to lower, creaking metallically. When she was fully down, Tony offered his arm, lifting her down to the ground and then pecking a kiss to her bruising forehead, “Not stupid, Darce. Just reckless. But I happen to like recklessness. It’s my favourite of my qualities.” Idly kicking the pistol out of the sniper’s broken and shaking grip, he led her towards the exit, eyes taking over the rest of the building before taking in the state of his companion. “You know, Thor does not have a say in who you get to date, I know, but that guy was...” 

“Using me. And not just because my boobs are spectacular.” Tony nodded sadly. 

“Sorry about that, Darce.” 

“I just...I kinda miss the days when all I had to worry about when questioning a guy’s intentions was my rack.” 

“I know. I fear for the day when Steve falls in love with Miss Apple Pie and she turns out to be evil.” 

Darcy snorted, shaking her head, “Tony, I really don’t think you need to worry about that.” 

“And why not?” 

Darcy stopped, looking at him with the cold assessment of a young woman whose formative years had been spent determining whether or not she was getting attention on her own merit or because her boobs were incredible. Tony felt like he was being weighed and measured, and was about to be found wanting. “You know what? Never mind. Evil Miss Apple Pie. You should totally be worried. I mean, it’s not like you didn’t just take down an improbable number of armed goons; you probably won’t be able to take her.” 

“I feel like you’re teasing me with something I’m missing, Darce. Not fair.” 

Darcy smiled an enigmatic smile, and promptly changed the subject, “So, this date; I want to go dancing.” 

“Not clubbing, right; proper dancing?” Tony clarified, “I promised Pepper I would not allow myself to be painted with glow-in-the-dark body glitter ever again, is all.” 

Darcy looked as though she wanted nothing more than to have seen that, and she visibly restrained herself from whatever reaction was burgeoning, “Proper dancing. No body glitter. There’s this jazz club in Manhattan that’ll be perfect.” 

“Dancing, then. Dinner as well?” 

Darcy’s grey eyes were impossibly bright as she hit her lip and nodded. 

“When would you like to go on this date?” 

Darcy pulled a face, touching her forehead where a bruise was beginning to bloom, “Can we wait until this clears up?” 

“Of course. Though I do love a girl with battle scars.” Darcy flushed, laughing as they reached the door. Tony tilted his head, holding up a finger to pause. 

Flinging open the doors just as Steve was barreling towards them, Tony twirled Darcy neatly into him, dipping her theatrically as Steve hit the brakes a little too late not to slide through the space Darcy had just been inhabiting. Darcy clung to his arms, looking up at him with heart eyes. “I’m getting myself into trouble getting you to take me dancing, aren’t I?” 

Tony grinned, adjusting his grip into a proper pose and easily leading her through a graceful waltz box. “It may be trouble, but it’ll be fun.” 

Steve backtracked to them, looking completely unimpressed. “You got kidnapped.” 

“Yup. Thanks for coming to save us.” Tony replied flippantly, twirling Darcy out of his arms and into Thor, who hugged her tight, a look of such intense worry on his features that Tony felt what passed for him as his heartstrings give a tug. 

“Yeah, ‘cause you needed so much saving.” Steve muttered, shaking his head and frowning. Darcy extricated herself from Thor and was immediately scooped up by Clint, Natasha lingering over his shoulder to take in Darcy’s injuries before sliding over to Tony, her green eyes deadly as she flicked over him. 

“Don’t look at me. Darcy head butted a bad guy, I had very little to do with this.” 

Natasha’s brow rose so sharply that Tony wondered if she was actually made of knives. “Crude, but effective.” 

Tony shrugged expansively, “It seems to have worked.” 

Darcy was released from Clint’s tight hug and Natasha slid forward before Thor could pull Darcy into another embrace, wrapping her arm around Darcy’s shoulders and leading her forwards. The others orbited around as Natasha led her out to the waiting SHIELD vans, but Steve lingered beside Tony, eyes raking over him like he was scared Tony was an illusion. “Are you okay?” 

“I’m fine. Kinda hungry. Darcy and I are going to go on a date once her bruises clear up, though; I’m gonna need to find some good dancing shoes.” 

Steve flashed a look of surprise, a frown crinkling between his brows. “That...that sounds like you’ll have fun.” 

“Darcy needs a good date after Thor managed to make a grown man cry simply by telling him that he was a lecherous stock fish unworthy of Darcy’s regard.” 

“As if you would have reacted differently to your one of your idols saying that.” 

Tony knew he should not have the words coming out of his mouth, but that did not slow him down, and the look on Steve’s face spoke volumes of all he needed to regret, “I had my _only_ idol tell me that I wasn’t worth it, Steve. I’m pretty sure I didn’t cry.”


	5. Flower Line by Om Shankar

Tony was too young to be expected to understand that his house had just been invaded, his butler shot in the shoulder, and the large men in black masks had locked the woman he thought of as his mother in the pantry. Her knew and understood these things, particularly when the beautiful woman who’d stopped those men from carting him out of the house knelt in front of the pantry door, scolding Jarvis to bloody hold still or she’d tell Ana he was being an idiot. She got it unlocked without the key, and Tony’s interest piqued. Ana rushed into the woman’s arms, hugging her tightly before rushing over to where Tony and Jarvis had been deposited on the kitchen stools. Ana pressed a soft kiss to his forehead, taking over for him in compressing Jarvis’s wound, asking instead that the woman call for an ambulance. Tony slid down from the stool, walking over to the kitchen phone and pointing up at it when the woman looked around for one. 

“Trust Howard to have a tele in every room.” She sighed, smiling at Tony. “Thank you very much, Anthony.” 

“He prefers to be called Tony,” Ana told her distractedly, “Tony, this is Aunt Peggy, she’s your godmother.” Tony stuck out his hand as Obie had taught him, and Peggy’s smile grew into an even more beautiful thing as she shook his hand, the ringing phone balanced between shoulder and ear. “Tony, do you remember where we put the kit?” Ana asked as Peggy started speaking to whomever was on the other line, and Tony nodded, dashing off to go retrieve the first aid kit from where he and Jarvis had stashed it the last time Tony had taken a tumble running after his toy car. Ana smiled sweetly at him as he returned with it in his hands, and Peggy rang off, turning to them. Her eyes were as dark as his, a look of constant knowing hidden in the soft curves of her features. 

“Tony, would you like to come wait with me for my friends?” Peggy asked, offering a hand. 

Tony looked round to Jarvis and Ana, and Ana shook her head, “We’ll be fine. Go on.” 

Tony took Peggy’s hand, walking out with her into the back gardens, the the back gate hanging off its hinges and a lightly smoking black car abandoned just inches from having been left in the fountain. “I had to make something of an entrance to get here in time,” Peggy explained, and neatly sat on the step, leaving room enough for him to sit with her. “Are you injured, Tony?” Tony shook his head, even though his arm hurt where he’d been grabbed. “You’re very brave. Thank you for kicking that man with the gun. You may have saved my skin there.” Peggy’s voice was low and sounded like a song, and Tony wanted to keep listening. “I’m sorry it’s been so long since we’ve met. You were just a baby when last I saw you. You’re so grown now.” Tony smiled shyly from under his fringe of lashes, and Peggy gently squeezed his hand. “I’m a little surprised that a child of Howard’s is being so quiet, though.” 

Her eyes were too cunning, and Tony fought against his nature for only a little longer before caving, “Obie says children should be seen, not heard.” Obie had made that quite clear, actually. Tony had never seen him so angry as he was after Tony got caught talking to a four-star General about the mathmatic probability of another world war. Obie had been raving, only calming down when Ana had tracked Tony down only to find him cowering as Obie bellowed that it was not his place to speak to the important men Obie brought to Howard’s workshop. Ana had been livid at the fear in her charge’s eyes, and had swept into the room, all-but looming despite Obie being more than twice her size. Tony had taken Obie’s words to heart, though. Would do anything it took to be good. 

“Well bugger that.” Peggy dismissed Obie with an authority that was absolute; and Tony didn’t know why, but he immediately trusted Peggy more than he did Obie, “I’m told children are some of the best conversationalists out there.” 

Tony ducked his head, liking Peggy more by the moment as her beautiful smile grew even brighter. “Is Jarvis gonna be okay?” 

“He will be, but it will take a while for him to heal.” Peggy answered, and Tony could tell that she was telling him the truth, and would more than likely tell him the truth for anything he asked. Most grown-ups, even Jarvis and Ana never told him the truth. He knew it was “for his own good” that they didn’t, but something told him that Peggy wouldn’t fall prey to wanting to protect him that way. 

“I can help him in the garden, but I’m not allowed to help in the kitchen.” 

“Oh?” 

“I accidentally electrified the toaster.” Tony admitted, “Well, I meant to electrify the toaster. I accidentally left it electrified.” 

Peggy was visibly fighting laughter, and Tony felt a swell of pride rise through him, a huge grin taking over his features as he rocked slightly in his seat, "You’re what, now? Two?"

"Two and three-quarters." Tony corrected, “In three months, I turn three.” 

“How lovely!” Peggy exclaimed, her eyes deceptively bright, hiding something, a lot like his mother did when she was running out the door with a mountain of bags taller than her, and Jarvis was looking at him sadly. “You’re incredibly smart for your age. What do your tutors say?” 

“My tutors don’t like me.” Tony’s nose crinkled in disgust, “I’m not well-behaved enough.” 

Peggy’s frown got deep fast, but Tony got the sense that he was not the one causing it. “Has your father ever told you about Steve Rogers?” Tony shook his head, looking concerned. 

“Steve Rogers was...the best man I’ve ever known. And he was not what most would call well-behaved either, but that never even slowed him down.” Peggy had a wistful smile, “He was an abominable influence. Looked as innocent as a bloody angel, but he was always behind whatever his men got up to. He was never nearly as innocent as he seemed.” Peggy paused, looking at Tony and smiling, “Then again, you probably look enough like Howard that you’re nowhere near as much trouble as you look.” Tony tried very hard not to react to being likened to his father, but he got the sense that Peggy didn’t fall for the mischievous grin he pasted on. 

The sound of racing cars filled the air, and Tony sat straighter, curious but willing to hold off as men scurried out of cars and what looked like an ambulance but undeniably wasn’t rocked on its chassis as it was not so much stopped as suddenly parked. Tony didn’t bat an eyelash at this; he was a Stark, given a few years he would be in the thick of it, just like his father, and he knew it. Peggy wrapped an arm around him, lifting him into her arms as she followed the disorganized herd of armed men through the door, a shining beacon of ruthless calm and efficiency amidst the storm of men searching through the house. Ana did not look pleased as Peggy swept into the kitchen behind the “medics”. Ana’s hip was cocked, her red-blonde brow cocked and lips pursed as she watched Jarvis fail spectacularly at refraining from a rant about the damage the men would do to his pristine carpets. Peggy was biting back laughter as Jarvis was installed on a stretcher, still fretting. “Don’t worry, Mr. Jarvis, we’ll clean up after ourselves.” Peggy soothed, her dark eyes lit with something quite like mischief as she shot a glance at Ana, who had to bite back a grin as Jarvis squawked that that was undoubtedly _worse_.

“It’s good to see you again, Peggy.” 

“And you, Ana.” Peggy’s smile was hesitant, but Ana was at ease as she came over to them, a hand on Tony’s back. “Would you like to ride with Mr. Jarvis? I can bring Tony with me.” 

“Thank you, Peggy.” Ana’s warm, genuine smile was beautiful as she leaned to press a short kiss to Tony’s cheek, catching his eye, “You’ll be safe with Peggy.” 

“Will you need anything? Tony and I can gather supplies if need be.” Peggy offered, studiously ignoring it as Jarvis whinged. 

“There’s an overnight bag in the closet...” Ana murmured distractedly, and moved as if she was going to go get it before Peggy gently reached out to stop her, directing Ana to follow the medics. 

“Tony and I can bring that to you. Is there anything else you need?” 

Ana shook her head, distractedly following into the back of the waiting ambulance. Peggy looked at Tony, taking the keys for another car from one of her underlings as she shifted his weight on her hip. Humming softly to herself, Peggy carried Tony inside before setting him down and allowing him to shadow her as she retrieved the bag, and he quietly but thoughtfully gathered more supplies to it. 

Hours later, when Peggy was putting him to bed, Tony looked up at her, dark eyes young and far too clever, “Tell me another Steve story?” 

Peggy pressed a red-lipped kiss to the centre of his forehead, smiling at the print she left behind, “Always, my darling.”


	6. Danger to Myself by The Unlikely Candidates

Tony Stark had grown up first with the tales of Steve Rogers, and then Steve had become Cap in the stories, and Tony had laboured under the assumption that Cap and Steve were interchangeable. 

Of course, reading people was the polar opposite of math to him, so he was always wrong. He was nothing if not a fast learner, though; scrapping his preconceived notion of a man who was cunning as a fox, but as fair as Justice herself. While he was adaptable, Steve had walked onto that Helicarrier with a few preconceived notions of his own, and while Tony’s usual act of being a bit of an ass had been enough to cover that he’d even had any expectations, Steve had laid the fact that he had some of his own, plain for all to see. Tony had learned quickly that Steve was an immovable object, and that the world was lucky that when his unstoppable force was directed into that immovable object, the crash had been explosively interrupted. 

Tony had then learned, slowly, that Steve was coping as much as he was able, and wouldn’t ask for help, even though he needed it. He also learned that helping Steve was going to be difficult if you were Tony Stark, so he’d backed off, as much as his conscience would allow, and instead poured himself into helping in ways that were so surreptitious they actually escaped even Natasha’s notice until he’d slipped up and told her. She’d not been pleased about the “new-found subtlety”, as she’d put it, immediately investigating what he’d done for each of them. Tony knew his secret was safe with her, if only because Clint would crow about Tony pulling a fast one on her when she’d been the one assigned to dissect his life in the first place. Instead, Tony ended up with Natasha as an accomplice to his covert comforting. Not, of course, when it came to what he was trying to do for her, but for everyone else, he had someone he could bounce ideas off of, and Natasha began to come out of her isolation because of it; first joining him for nightcaps, then accompanying Banner and himself on their forays into pop-culture’s excuse for sci-fi when Bruce had run into a dead-end on an experiment and needed to forget his frustration for a while. 

Tony knew now that Steve was lonely, and that despite Tony’s best efforts, he may always be lonely. 

But he had a chance, just one shot, and it meant saving the man who’d killed his family, but there wasn’t much of a choice to make when he thought about the nights that Steve screamed for James Buchanan Barnes in the night, reaching for a man long slipped from his fingers. Tony would deal with the fallout when it came to it; would find a way to be alright losing Steve, would find a way to control the rage bubbling in him at seeing the man who killed his family taking the love of his life from him. Natasha would be less than pleased, and Pepper would get very quiet and very angry, but Tony knew that if it meant Steve would be happier, he would drag himself through Hell and then turn around and go back. It was what love meant, Tony realized. Not necessarily the healthiest definitions, he realized, but to him, it was worth it to hurt himself to make Steve happy. 

The weight of the high school that had fallen on them was causing pressure fractures in the armour as he shielded Bucky Barnes with his body, shaking from the effort and wishing for Igor, despite Igor being destroyed in saving the President. 

Bucky had torn off the communication module in the suit during their fight, leaving him unable to call out, hoping to anyone who'd listen that they would be found before Bucky came-to again. 

In the silence of it, Tony filled his head with calculations for rebuilding Igor and his brothers, because if he didn't get lost in the math, then his traitorous dick of a mind would turn to imagining the reunion between Steve Rogers and James Barnes, every tearful moment of it. 

Tony would have to leave New York for a while, he knew himself well enough to know that. He'd need to give himself time to fit his masks back into place when it came to Steve. He'd need to give himself space to find a way to stop himself from wanting to kill Bucky. New York was home, but he'd already run away from it once, and he could do it again if he had to. Rebuild in Malibu--or maybe pick somewhere new; somewhere without any memories attached. 

The servos in his arms were beginning to groan as the pressure began to work on the lock-up mechanism in the joints. 

"Tony!" It was faint under the heavy push of his own breathing, but Tony knew that Natasha's voice was not the one he'd be conjuring calling to him if he were to start hallucinating their rescue party. 

"Here!" Tony shouted, knowing there was no way he could move without causing the whole thing to collapse, and he wasn't quite that desperate to be found that he'd risk pancaking the man he'd put himself in this position to protect in the first place. "Dear god, please hear me." 

The crunch of Natasha's reinforced boots over the debris got closer, and Tony let out a breath of relief as she crouched before the mound of rubble he was buried under, just visible by the bright red of her hair, "Tony, why--?"

"I've got someone in here with me, if I move this whole thing comes down and I risk crushing him. I need Steve to pull him out from under me while I lift as much of it as I can." Tony reported, and Natasha ducked her head to speak into her comm. “Is everyone else okay?”

“Pretty sure you’ve scared ten years off of Steve’s life.” Natasha informed him tartly, and Tony grinned. 

“He won’t mind, he’s been worried about his life expectancy overreaching mine.” Tony hadn’t been able to broach that subject with Steve, which he should have been more ashamed of, but things with Steve had been going _so well_ that he wanted to pretend that he hadn't noticed Steve's worried looks, could get away with being more careful in the lab as his fix to the concern. That it was putting a Hello Kitty band-aid over a sucking chest wound wouldn't matter soon anyway; he was about to bring Bucky back, and he would never have to face Steve's fears, because it wouldn't be him that Steve was afraid of losing anymore. 

"Steve seems to be in shock enough that he's shut down, so the role of Steve tonight will be played by Thor." Clint's voice informed him, far enough off that Tony knew he was trying to help Steve. 

"What--What's going on with Steve?"

"He's a little too sure that you're dead." Natasha replied simply, "I don't think he can hear you or anyone else right now, so he's gonna sit on the sidelines while Thor and you save your ass." 

"Okay, big guy. I need you to grab the unconscious pile of assassin under me and pull to safety. I should be able to do the rest." 

"This has just enough of a lack of plan to sound like it'll end badly." Natasha sighed, and Tony couldn't help the grin he shot her way, even though she couldn't see it. 

"On three...One, two, three!" Tony started to push will all he had; the suit groaning under the strain as he moved, raising himself up enough to get enough room for Thor to grab Bucky, then going for broke and continuing until he was standing with the pile of rubble fallen from his back. 

Steve was on the ground a few feet away, the look in his eyes enough that Tony was very nearly brought to his knees again, because it spoke of both pain and a hope too powerful to put to words. Steve had scrabbled to his knees, eyes drinking him in as Tony flipped the faceplate up, and then Thor shifted, and Steve's attention was drawn to the other man that had nearly been buried alive. Tony couldn't stop himself, completely unsteady as if he hadn't been in the suit when he took the building to the back, walking forward those feet and dropping to his knees in front of Steve, just taking him in one last time. He managed to keep himself from reaching for Steve, but that was only a small consolation as he drank in his fill of Steve's mortified features, looking at Bucky lying unconscious in Thor's grip. When the mortification changed to something like happiness, Tony knew it was time to go--and even with his suit so utterly damaged, he knew the best way out would be to try to get it to fly for him, because at this point falling from a great height because the suit finally gave out would be preferable to all that would come next. 

He'd managed no further than getting his feet back under him before Steve had apparently snapped out of the shock of seeing his best friend back from the dead. Steve was in his arms, holding him so tightly that as the suit disengaged rather than trapping him within it, Tony felt the pieces being stripped away rather than just falling to the ground as they would have done had they had room to fall. Steve is holding Tony the way Tony often resisted holding him; like he wanted to crawl into the arms around him and exist only there. As the last pieces fell away, Tony pressed a kiss to his temple. "Steve?" He asked softly, and the only answer he got was the flexing of Steve's fingers on his hips. He wanted to know if this would be goodbye, but he would rather have shot himself than ask. He felt more than saw Bruce taking in the damage done, and Natasha's next to inspect the merchandise. "He's going to be okay, Steve." Bruce told him, enunciating, and Tony wondered if Steve was going to be okay. 

"Is he okay?" Tony asked pointedly, and Bruce shrugged. Squirming slightly, Tony managed to get enough room between them to look up at Steve, nodding towards Bucky, "Go." 

Steve released his grip on Tony's Metallica t-shirt, but it was only to change his grip, careful of bruises that Tony could already feel blossoming, to yank Tony back into his arms. Tony wondered if Steve had heard him, if this was just more shock, and flipped Clint off as the archer made a crack about Steve having to let him go at some point since the medics were not going to make it through the remains of the city block only to have their work further impeded by a supersoldier with abandonment issues. Natasha flicked him in the ear, and Clint huffed, rolling his eyes so hard Tony was half-worried that he'd knock loose what little grey matter he had left to work with. Steve didn't resist when Tony slowly pulled away, but it was clear from his expression that it was killing him to put space between them. 

So it'd be a slow death, then; Steve would try to force himself to stay, and Tony wasn't sure he had the gumption to force him to leave when it really was time for him to go. 

Natasha and Bruce came to flank him, Natasha taking his arm to lean on her as they trudged through the rubble, Rhodey in War Machine carrying the still-unconscious Bucky. He was going to get an earful from Rhodey about that, he just knew it. "Stop." Natasha told him so softly that it was almost lost to the crunch of gravel beneath them. He looked, and her eyes were fathomless and knowing in a way that had made Tony know she wasn't all she seemed, so long ago. "He loves you more than I've ever seen someone love another. Stop." 

Tony opened his mouth to protest, but they were at the medics and that was all-but an attack. Tony got them to look at Bucky first, then talked them into taking a look at Steve. He had a few band-aids slapped on in places where the weight had been enough to pressure the suit into puncturing his skin, and made a mental note to try to build himself some kind of flexible material to line the suit--though wearing it would be better, and he'd just be able to steal the specs for Widow's battle clothes if he went with something he could wear. 

The car ride home was with Bruce and Natasha, her eyes sharp as she observed him more closely than she had even when that was her assignment. He knew why, of course; when he'd agreed to just go home and rest, it'd been too readily, Steve was still being talked at by the medics, and for all he needed to start distancing himself now, he knew that it was going to tip Natasha off. 

It was easier than it should have been to slip both Natasha and Bruce, and that should have been enough of a sign that Steve's arrival was imminent, but when he stormed into the lab just a few minutes later, Tony felt like his insides flinched, and he prayed to any god that would listen that he'd managed to keep the flinch from being visible. "Tony! Tony, do you have any idea how badly you scared me?" Steve's hands were shaking as he turned Tony's swivel chair and pulled him into an embrace, grip firm on his shirt as if Tony was going to make his escape by rolling away. 

The words weren't supposed to come out, but they tried to make up for it by being barely audible, "You should be with Barnes at the hospital." 

"No, I should be with you in our bed. I think I would have died if you weren't alright, Tony." Because he didn't have someone to stand in, but now he had Bucky, and no one needed to have a spare Tony Stark.

"He's back from the dead--" 

His attempt at being brave was cut off, Steve releasing his shirt to kneel on the workshop floor, taking his battered hands with a tenderness that could probably actually heal, "He's been brainwashed, and tortured, and even if Fury let me anywhere near him, I'm not sure he'd want to see me, since I'm the reason he...he fell. I don't need to worry about Bucky right now, because you're injured and because you scared me, and I need to be with you." The look in those blue eyes was usually unfair on some level--Steve was the walking definition of unfairness considering what he looked like naked--but the devastation behind those features, the relief and the echo of pain was something that made Tony want to have the option to make a humiliating roller-stool escape. He didn't want to be a distraction; didn't think he could stand to be losing Steve and to be used like that. And it was ironic that he'd been using sex as a distraction for years,but couldn't stand the thought of being used as the distraction now? "Do you hear me?"

"I hear the words, I understand their meaning, but I want to know what you're actually thinking, because that's not it." Tony told him, a part of his brain that he usually ignored trying to tell him that the math was adding up that Steve was more worried about him than Bucky, but he'd had enough practice being wrong about people that he was studiously ignoring that. "You have nightmares, and I have nightmares--but when you have nightmares, you talk in your sleep, and his name is what you shout, over and over and over." His voice was steady enough, which was a relief, but the only way to describe the look that came over Steve's face could only be described as "gobsmacked". 

"Tony, do you know what my nightmares are?" Steve asked quietly, and Tony felt his forehead crumple; he was ageing well so far, what was a few more confusion lines to add to the pile? 

"Of course n--"

Steve took a deep breath, licking his lips as if the nightmares were right there, waiting for him, "In my nightmares, you're the one that falls out of my reach. When Bucky...fell... and after watching you free-fall out of that portal...for a long time, it was you that replaced him, your hand slipping out of mine because I wasn't fast enough to get to you in time. Bucky was my best friend...he was the only one who always believed in me, before," Steve cut off, gesturing to himself, and Tony's crumple of confusion became a full-blown frown, "and I'll always be thankful to him for that, but...it wouldn't matter to you if I were this, or that shrimp getting his ass kicked in every back alley in Brooklyn." Tony's heart gave a slow, painful twist in his chest at the thought of Steve, rail-thin and with the kind of stubbornness that could drive a feather through a thick slab of marble. He would be the first to admit that Steve was the perfect specimen--but he also would have taken one look at that matinee-idol grin on a man half Tony's size and would have fallen just as far in love with that man as he had with this one. 

"Pretty sure it never mattered to him, either." 

The look of steel in Steve's eyes would scare anyone else, he knew. "That's where you're wrong. He hated this. He wanted the shrimp back. I think he'd been banking on coming back with a ducky war story and picking up where we left off, which was him trying desperately to find me a date, and me trying desperately to tell myself that I really wasn't more interested in the mechanic down the way who let me sketch the inside of an engine." Tony's eyes narrowed, and Steve bit back a grin, knowing that the fabrication of the mechanic had thoroughly been recognized as the ploy it was. "It was alright, 'cause I wanted the shrimp back a lot of the time, after..." Tony's hand twitched with the want to reach up and cup Steve's cheek, all too aware of what it'd been like when Steve had had to adjust to life as a civilian. He'd done everything he could think of to help, but it still never felt like enough. 

He never felt like enough, "I know you miss it all the time...and if I could, I would give it to you." Steve took a breath, but Tony held up a hand to stop him, "He's a part of you. I know that. You don't have to keep...putting on the brave face. He's here now--"

Steve interrupted anyway, "Only brave face I put on is when you're too busy and I have to go to bed alone." Taking Tony's hand in his and rubbing his thumb over Tony's palm, Steve's features darkened with his next words, and Tony didn't want to hear them, "You didn't see me when I thought...You only saw me after you started moving. I was gone, Tony." Voice catching, Steve reached up to curve carefully over the back of his neck, his thumbs rubbing over his jaw and making the urge to kiss him a compulsion, just to see him happy, "You keep pointing me at Bucky, but you don't need to. I'll get there when I'm good and ready, and right now, I want you in our bed; I want to take a look at your back and rub some ointment on your hands and fall asleep with you pressed against me, with the reactor shining out because I thought...oh god, Tony, I thought I'd never see your light again." Steve was shaking, and even if it was going to hurt him later, Tony couldn't stop himself from pulling Steve into his arms. 

"You're going to want to leave me, Rogers." This was a conversation they'd had before, in the limbo between when they'd been friends and when they'd finally fallen into each other, but this time he was certain, "You're going to want to go back to him the second you realize that he loved you, too."

Steve gave him a significant look, then visibly re-strategized, a slow smile creeping over his mouth, "Even if he did, you keep it far more interesting. With Bucky, he'd want the white picket fence and the two-point-five kids and the dog--" Tony couldn't help but snort, and Steve's arm went around his lower back, easing him down off the stool and into his body as he sat on the cold concrete. "Tony, where is this coming from?"

It came from everyone he'd ever loved leaving him one way or another; it came from hours of stories about Steve Rogers and Captain America, and the man that stood by both. "He's--He's James Buchanan Barnes. A hero." Steve's hero. 

"You're Tony fucking Stark," the assertion was quiet, but so utterly steady that Tony's heart squeezed in his chest once again even as he laughed, "you're a superhero. And while Buck's always been in my heart, we were never more than friends; more than brothers. He got me through a lot, I will be the first to admit that; but you've gotten me through a lot more." Steve's hand took his firmly, even if he was careful of the damage done by the breaking gauntlets, and Tony let himself hope; let himself cling to Steve's hand like he could believe that Steve wasn't going to walk away. "I'm not going to leave you: If there was ever a chance of that happening, I think it would probably have been during that thing with the radioactive ducklings at Easter. That was just **_bad_**."

"Hey, at least...25% of those jokes were Clint." Tony grumbled his protest, laughing despite himself at the memory of just how bad the puns had gotten. 

Steve pasted on a look of exasperation, "Why Fury thought it was a good idea to stick the two most sarcastic men I have ever met on the same damn team is beyond me." 

Tony rolled his eyes, "Like you're not just as fucking bad." 

It was not until later, when he was safely lying in Steve's arms, warm and loved, that Tony allowed himself to go over the probabilities again, but the math refused to work itself out as quickly as he needed it to, because he fell asleep before the answers he needed could be found. 

Waiting in bed for Steve the next morning, knowing that Coulson was in their kitchen with a file on Bucky Barnes, Tony wouldn’t let himself go back to the math, even if the answer was a sword of Damocles. Instead, he pulled up the news and got lost for a little while in wondering when they'd be labelled more harm than good, when there would be a public outcry to see them shut down.

Pundits had been beating their chests about it for a while, and the public made it clear that they weren't amused by that--but how long would it be before the public opinion soured enough that they were brought up for all the damage done? How long before they were being blamed for the attacks? 

Tony knew that his own track record would get called to the fore before long; knew that they would be under siege of public opinion before long, because people were very rarely unpredictable in a group. Rehashing his mistakes would get the pundits so far in their goal to discredit and disband the Avengers, but he knew that the real target would likely be Bruce, if he didn't step in. Considering how, exactly, he could step in was a new bundle of problems, and Tony was all too happy to concern himself with that instead of dwelling on the feeling that the other shoe was finally about to drop when it came to him and Steve. Curled up on their bed, Tony watched as the high school collapsed onto him, and felt more than heard Steve come back into the room. Tony felt drawn into him, aching to be under his hands. It was nothing new when it came to Steve, but it was utterly new in general; Tony was not used to or good at affection, but for some reason Steve brought out the need in spades. Having Steve's hands on him was a constant source of distraction in the best of ways. 

He was going to be treated with kid gloves for the foreseeable future, that much was for certain, but when Steve had bullied him into a cold bath after they'd had breakfast, and knelt beside the tub rather than crawling into it with him, carefully scrubbing at his gritty-feeling skin, Tony found he was oddly okay to be taken care of, so long as it kept the worry out of Steve's eyes. 

"You okay?" Tony asked quietly, trying to catch Steve's eye as Steve gently massaged soap into his skin as if he knew just how badly Tony had strained every muscle in his body. "Don't get lost in that head of yours. I'm not as good at digging you out of your head as you are digging me out." 

Steve smiled softly, leaning over the edge of the tub to kiss him softly, "That'd about do the trick." 

Tony laughed, but caught Steve's hand anyway, looking up at him with everything laid bare, "Seriously, Steve. What's going through that head of yours?"

Steve licked his lips, the long fan of his lashes grazing his cheeks as he ducked his gaze, "I came too close to losing you," Steve murmured, "you scared the hell out of me, Tony. And I still feel like I lost you."

"What do you mean?" 

Steve took a shaky breath, and Tony wrapped his hands around Steve's, holding tight, "You're still scared, aren't you?" Tony stilled, caught, and Steve twisted his hand out of Tony's grip, moving to take Tony's face in his hands. "Talk to me, shellhead." 

Tony smiled softly, leaning their foreheads together, brushing the backs of his fingers against the back of Steve's neck, "You're too good for me, Steve, I've been waiting for the other shoe to drop this whole time. I don't want to lose you, but if I don't--" Steve's thumb pressed to Tony's lips, then moved it away, kissing him full and deep. "Please--" Steve kissed him again, his hands fluttering over his skin because he was too afraid to touch. 

"You're not going to lose me." Steve told him, voice a husky roll of heat that had Tony's every nerve ablaze, his whole body tingling like he'd dropped a hair dryer in the bathwater. "You couldn't get rid of me if you tried, Tony. And I won't let you let me go. You can't push me away. I will love you until the day I die." 

Tony twitched, already breathless even as Steve urged him into another kiss, his toes curling as he wrapped an arm around Steve's shoulders, nearly pulling himself out of the tub despite the pain. Steve's hand slid, very nearly restraining, down to his hip. Groaning, Tony's hands bunched in his shirt, hitching it up slowly, the want to pull him into the tub thwarted only by the graze of Steve's teeth over his lip as he grinned into the kiss, ending it to give a slow shake of his head. Steve pressed soft kisses to his cheeks, his forehead, down his neck. "God, I wish I wasn't so bruised right now." Tony whined, and Steve chuckled, kissing him again softly. 

"You have no idea how much I wish you weren't so bruised, too." Steve pressed a kiss to Tony's hair, the hand on Tony's hip disappearing to scoop up water, pouring it over Tony's hair and massaging his fingers into his scalp. Tony had no compunctions about pushing into the touch, eyes closed and tension released from him. “Will you come back to bed with me?” 

Tony very nearly snickered, “Like you need to ask to get me to climb into bed with you.” 

“To sleep, Tony.” Steve chastised mildly, and Tony laid his head in Steve’s broad hand, his lips twitching. 

“I like sleeping with you,” Tony told him, catching his chin and urging him into a kiss, “you could probably talk me into just about anything, Steve. You're the love of my life, I would do anything for you." 

Steve gathered Tony's hands into one of his, kissing the bruised and broken skin, his touch so careful that Tony could only feel the warmth of him. "I knew you loved me...but I never thought you'd say it." 

Tony blinked, holding his silence because what was there to say to that? He hadn't said those words to anyone before, after all. 

“I like hearing you say it,” Steve murmured, eyes earnest and a little scared, “but I’d like it even more if you’d believe me when I say it back to you.” 

Tony met his gaze, feeling very nearly shy, no matter how out of character that was. “I do believe you...I just don’t know how much longer you’ll love me.” 

Steve’s features pursed, leaning over the side of the tub and wrapping his arms around Tony, pulling him into a slow, sensuous kiss. Tony pulled gently, and Steve climbed over the side of the tub, t-shirt, sweatpants and all; groaning as the cold water rushed to meet him. He shuddered into Tony’s arms, kissing him deeper as he carefully balanced his weight. As the kiss slowly ended, Steve slowly settled back until he was laying down on the opposite side, beckoning Tony into laying against his chest. Tony immediately obliged, nuzzling into his neck before sucking a bruise into the skin over his pulse. Tony's hands drifted under his shirt, wrapping around his chest, thumbs teasing at his nipples. Steve's hands fluttered over him, unable to settle anywhere because he was bruised fucking _everywhere_ , and Steve was never going to risk hurting him. 

"Just touch me, Steve." Tony managed, kissing over the bruise until it disappeared. 

Steve pressed his lips to Tony’s cheek, trailing over his jaw and then up to the hollow of his temple, breathing him in. "I love you, Tony. I will love you no matter how hard you push me away." 

Tony shivered more out of how Steve affected him than he did from the cold, squeezing his eyes closed. He eased his hands over Steve's chest, up over his shoulders and into his hair, kissing him so sweetly that Tony was light-headed no matter how much air he dragged into his lungs. He knew that Steve loved this; just the kissing, even if there was nothing that could come from the slow press of lips. Kissing Steve for the first time had been a revelation; Steve had been drunk, but that did not change the way Steve kissed him. Steve's kisses were impossibly slow, and there were times, when they'd been kissing for what seemed like hours, that Steve's kisses would be so fleeting, so gentle that it was only how breathless it left him that let Tony know that he was still being kissed. Making out with Steve was like nothing he'd ever experienced, and Tony wondered if the ease with which they fell together just to steal kisses like this was what being in high school was supposed to have been like. He had no expectations; no agenda beyond kissing the love of his life until neither of them remembered what they were supposed to be doing for the next year, and Tony was man enough to admit, if only to himself, that this was his favourite way to distract Steve Rogers out of his head for a little while. 

It was maddening, because Steve was always handsy, and yet he would not lay his hands on Tony's skin. His mouth was flushed and full in a way that made Tony ache with wanting him, and it was only made all the worse when Steve's blue eyes fluttered open, his gaze devious even though the smile was coy. Tony groaned, giving into it and falling back on his mouth with an urgency that wasn't going to get Steve's hands to touch him, because he was just giving in to exactly what Steve wanted. Tony sucked and nipped kisses down the line of Steve’s throat, Steve’s head falling back to give him complete access to all his lovely, pale skin. 

“You give me such fantastic ideas, Steve.” Tony gasped, breaking himself from Steve’s skin with an internal effort akin to bench-pressing Hulk. 

Steve groaned, squeezing his eyes closed, “I almost don’t want to ask.” 

“You may not be able to touch me, but I seem to be able to touch you plenty,” Tony purred, voice warm and rough in a way that sent Steve’s features slack in supplication, “this is going to be so much fun...” 

Steve jerked under his hands as Tony’s hands slid to drag blunt nails down his back with just enough pressure to light his every nerve ending on fire. Tony bunched Steve’s thoroughly sodden shirt up, stripping it from him and flicking it over the side of the tub with a resounding slap of wet fabric against marble tile. “Sex...sex in the bathtub...” Steve scrambled to remember his thoughts as Tony’s fingers inched beneath his sweatpants. He was bare beneath them, and Tony felt a roar of heat that had him close to whimpering. Steve’s movement was so fluid that Tony’s toes curled as he yanked the sweatpants off of his hips, “sex in the bathtub...is not a great idea. And you’re—“ 

Tony cut off the protest about his injuries, sucking on his lower lip and letting his hands squeeze at the tight tuck of Steve’s waist. “No bubbles equals less mess,” Tony breathed, “and at this point, I will build a bot just to clean up the mess from having bathtub sex.” 

Steve laughed, shaking his head as Tony chased the laughter to catch the taste. "Don't do that." 

"It'd be worth it." Tony murmured, voice rough as he wove his hands through Steve's hair, licking into his mouth again with an eagerness that made Steve's hands shake as they rested against Tony's waist. "So, so worth it..." 

Steve growled, his hands sliding further down until they could wrap around Tony's thighs, hitching his legs around Steve's waist and lifting them both out of the bathtub so easily that Tony could only cling to Steve's shoulders, his breath completely escaping him. Steve stormed out of the bathroom, headed with a single-mindedness that made Tony ache to the bedroom. Steve sat on the bed with no regard to how soaking they both were, his hands sliding over Tony's thighs, counted among the few parts of Tony that weren't black and blue. Steve nipped fleeting little kisses into Tony’s mouth, then nuzzled into the soft of his jaw, the shift from tight lust to a playful, almost coy teasing telling Tony both that Steve was willing to set aside his concern, and that Steve wanted him with an edge of playfulness. Tony was more than happy to be playful if it got Steve flushed and lust-blown. Gasping in a desperate breath at the fiery tingle that swept through him as heat returned, Tony kneaded at Steve’s shoulders, slowing their next kiss until it was barely there before nipping at Steve’s lush lower lip with an impish grin. Steve shot him a look that was meant to be quelling, but fell several feet short of the mark. Tony rubbed his beard and moustache over Steve’s pale collarbones, the irritation making Steve hiss and his hands to bunch in the covers. Tony nuzzled under Steve’s jaw, breath shivering over Steve’s skin and bringing goose flesh in its wake. 

Tony knew Steve’s body; knew where to touch him to coax a groan, or where to tease in order to have Steve’s every nerve ending at attention. Tony was a fan of sex, that much was fairly obvious from any given tabloid, and he had a knack for figuring out his partners’ weak spots; but Steve was decidedly different than anyone else he’d ever been with. Steve hadn’t been with anyone before, though he had admitted that Bucky had once tried to arrange a night with a chorus girl in their youth, but Steve had ultimately backed out of the situation. Steve had also admitted that he hadn’t ever really explored his own triggers in his solo expeditions, and so Tony, anxious as hell about making Steve’s first time as good as he possibly could, had spent hours first on what the usual spots were, then focusing on what worked for him. Steve had the patience of a saint until he had Tony naked, though, and even with Tony’s very reasonable (to him) explanation that he wanted Steve to enjoy such a shattering orgasm that Tony would have to be reclassified as a super villain for having taken out Captain America, Steve had done his damnedest to distract Tony out of his mission. Now, though, Steve couldn’t much touch him. 

Tony’s fingers slid over the long, strong column of Steve’s neck, running just the barest hint of his thumbnail over the arc of his spine while Steve’s head was tipped back to kiss him. Steve’s breath left him in a shudder, and Tony traced his hands down the powerful plains of Steve’s back, teasing only slightly at Steve’s one ticklish spot and laughing in breathless whispers as Steve shot a glare his way. Steve’s mouth was twitching, his eyes dancing with mirth as he beckoned Tony back into a kiss as sweet as Steve was distracted by the trailing of rough fingertips over his hips. Tony didn’t know if his arms would be able to hold his weight if he pushed Steve back against their navy blue sheets, but it didn’t matter; Steve banded an arm around his ass to steady him as Steve lifted himself up with Tony still sitting in his lap, sliding all too easily up until his back was against the headboard, his hand skimming over Tony’s skin as he looked up Tony’s body with lust-dark eyes. 

“I love you, Steve.” Tony told him earnestly, ducking to kiss him slowly. 

“I love you, too.” Steve answered, a goofy grin inexorably taking over his features. 

Tony took Steve’s hand, guiding him to grip their cocks together, Steve’s broad palm wrapping around them both. 

Tony, as a fan of sex, was a bit of a connoisseur of sex in all its forms. He had to admit, though, that Steve had managed to surprise him with how good a handjob could be. It helped, of course, that Steve's hands were huge, and always so warm that the thought of them could pretty much make Tony purr like a cat. Having Steve's hand wrapped around him--around them--was something maddening and so agonizingly painful that they were both lucky Tony refrained from watching him work when he was drawing, or neither of them would get very much done. Those hands were so careful, so strong and so gentle, that Tony could never resist them; didn't even think about expending the effort it would take to try. Steve had his own preoccupation with Tony's hands anyway, so it wasn't like he could complain. 

"How likely is it that I'll be able to talk you into fucking me?" Tony asked, sucking a mark under Steve's jaw. 

Steve growled, hips bucking almost involuntarily as Tony's teeth grazed his ear. "Do not tempt me right now." Tony grinned in response, and Steve let out another groan. "God, do not tempt me, I want you so much." Steve panted, his grip tightening and thumb running over the slick head of Tony's cock, smearing precum over them both. Tony pressed him into another long kiss, his hips rocking into Steve's grip languidly. "I'd love to take you apart." 

"Let's not resist that temptation, Steve." 

"You are way too bruised." 

"That is no excuse." Tony groaned. 

"Not an excuse a very good reason." Steve argued, teasing his thumbnail under the head of Tony's cock and covering his protests by sucking Tony's tongue into his mouth. "I won't hurt you." 

"You never do." Tony argued right back. "I'm beginning to doubt you _could_ ever hurt me. You love me too much." 

Steve reached up tenderly with his free hand, and Tony brushed their lips together. Steve stroked his hand over Tony’s neck, into his hair, his hair long enough that it was turning to curls. If it weren’t for Steve liking his hair curling, Tony would have gotten it cut ages ago, but the feel of Steve's fingers buried in the curls was too delicious to pass up. With a small tug, that exact sensation became suddenly secondary to Steve licking into his mouth filthily, his hand slowing down on their cocks until Tony was whining in the back of his throat, needy and desperate as he skirted his fingers over the peak of Steve's nipples, teasing the dip of his abdomen, tracing the muscle of his thighs. Steve let out a broken moan as Tony's fingers dug into that muscle, thumb moving in gentle circles on his inner thigh. Steve sighed, sucking on Tony's lower lip and tugging on his hair again. Tony reached for the lube blindly, and Steve nipped at his jaw, breaking the kiss to watch as Tony slicked his fingers, reaching behind himself and moaning as Steve's hand stuttered on his rhythm. 

"Steve," Tony gasped as Steve's fingers joined then replaced his, "oh god, please." 

His fingers were so blunt, so hot, that Tony could've cried it was so good. "Tony, you have to tell me--" 

Tony kissed the words out of his mouth, whimpering as Steve's fingers twisted. Steve's hand on his cock was maddening, pleasure a tight knot in his gut. "I need you..." 

"Fuck," Steve murmured, sucking at the curve of his shoulder, his breath sending Tony shivering into his touches, "do you have any idea how fucking tempting you are?" 

Flirting from under his lashes, Tony licked his lips and grinned, knocking Steve's hand away from their cocks, taking Steve in his hand and guiding himself onto the thick breach of Steve's cock. Steve shook, wound tight, and Tony let his hips roll in such a fluid movement that Steve nearly choked, his hips thrusting almost involuntarily as Tony began to move into a rhythm that had Steve clutching his hips, reaching up to kiss him desperately. "You feel amazing." 

Biting at the tendons in Steve's neck, Tony bore down on him and laughed as Steve bit out a curse that sounded as if it'd come from his toes. Steve planted his feet, using every trick in the book to get leverage to fuck up into him. Tony stroked his thumb over the dip in Steve's collarbones, kissing him greedily. “I adore you, Tony." 

Tony twined fingers through Steve's hair, licking and nipping gently at the swell of Steve's lower lip. Tugging his head to the side, Tony sucked a trail of hickies down the line of Steve's throat, growling when they almost immediately disappeared. Steve chuckled at him, chasing his mouth as Tony littered kisses everywhere but Steve's lips. Steve cupped his hands under Tony’s thighs, fingers brushing at his stretched rim, the moan that came pouring out of Tony leaving him boneless for a long minute as Steve teased his touches towards being too much. Tony rolled his hips, Steve’s fingers twitching against his skin as his own hips moved in tandem. Steve wrapped a hand around Tony’s erection, groaning as Tony clenched around him at the rush of pleasure. Tony whimpered as Steve rocked his hips in time with the strokes over his cock, feeling pleasure building in the pit of his stomach, but it felt like it was building to nowhere. 

It wasn’t the first time this had happened, but it never ceased to be annoying. Steve seemed to feel the change in Tony, loosening his grip on Tony’s cock and urging him down into a kiss instead, hips slowing and stuttering. 

“Don’t stop.” Tony growled, biting Steve’s jaw. 

“I don’t—“

“Steve, don’t you dare stop. It’s still good. I don’t have to cum to enjoy having sex with you.” Tony kissed the protest out of his mouth, brushing the shell of Steve’s ear and breathing, “You’re perfect.” 

“You’re—“ 

“Not that injured. Pretty sure I could break every bone in my body and still want you.” 

Steve groaned, shaking his head and laughing as Tony nuzzled into his throat, tickling as he did. “You’re such a terrible fucking influence.” 

“The very worst.” Tony agreed, laughing as he shifted, the angle changing enough that Steve gasped, arching and panting as he rocked back into rhythm. Steve laughed breathlessly, tracing his thumb over and around Tony’s nipple, looking impish. “You’re gorgeous.” Tony whispered, the colour riding Steve’s cheeks leaking up to his ears, blue eyes bright and lips swollen and wet. Steve’s lips twitched, his muscles bunching and flexing deliciously as he moved so that he could carefully lay Tony against the pillows, his hips cradled in Steve’s, legs draped over his thighs. Tony moaned, legs squeezing Steve’s waist as he hooked his ankles together behind Steve's back. 

“Are you in pain?” Steve asked carefully, his hands gentle as they skimmed over Tony's thighs, reaching down to cup his ass in huge, warm hands. 

“No,” Tony managed, “no pain, keep going, Steve. I’ll tell you if there’s a problem, I promise.” 

Steve pursed his lips, always suspicious when Tony made those kinds of promises, and Tony chuckled, hooking his legs higher around Steve’s back to pull him in closer. Brushing his lips across Steve’s shoulder, Tony breathed him in, closing his eyes and letting the pleasure spark under his closed lids. Steve knew not to try to push Tony into an orgasm he wouldn’t be able to give, instead focusing on making him feel good. It wasn’t difficult, Steve was huge inside him, hitting all the right places, and he knew Tony's body well enough to know exactly how to touch him to send him higher without overstimulating him. Steve raised Tony's hand to his mouth, kissing his palm, turning his hand over to ghost a stuttering breath over the scrapes to the backs of that much-abused hand. "I hate that you're hurt." 

"I know." Tony told him gravely, "I know exactly." 

"I heal faster than you do." Steve argued easily, kissing down his throat. 

"That doesn't help my worry." Pushing his fingers back through Steve's hair, Tony brushed his thumb over his cheek, Steve's bright blue eyes fluttering so that his lashes brushed against the pad of Tony's digit. "I love you too much not to worry for you, Steve. Every time you're hurt, I feel as if I've taken a hit from Hulk. I can't stand the thought of it." 

"Then stop thinking about it." 

There was a challenge in the curve of his mouth, the light in his eyes, "Make me." 

Steve grinned, rising to the challenge with a grin that was very nearly wild. Tony was more than happy to let Steve kiss him until their mouths went numb, which wasn't how Steve would normally clear all thought out of Tony's brain, but it'd at least slow the thoughts down to a crawl. Tony was craving the weight of Steve fully on top of him. Steve's bulk could make him feel small when he let it, and just then, Tony ached to have Steve covering him as if Steve could protect him from all that would come next. As if either of them could protect the other. Tony wanted to protect him so badly--wanted to protect every last one of their insane family so badly that it kept him awake if Steve let it. He wasn't sure Steve knew exactly what made him so restless, but Steve certainly knew how to chase it out of him. No one else had ever been able to as thoroughly mute his mind, and for that Tony thanked his lucky stars, because he was just about certain that it was what was going to drive him to asking Steve to marry him, to make sure that they were together for the rest of their days, and if anyone else had had the ability to shut Tony's head up, he may not have been a free man to fall into Steve's gravitational pull. 

He had the rings already made, tucked in a Rubik's cube ring box that he'd been fretting over for over a month. There was no such thing as the perfect moment, Tony knew that better than anyone, but he wanted a moment to at least feel right. 

Steve's lazy thrusts picked up in speed, and Tony drew his tongue over the seam of Steve's lips, hands folded around the back of his neck to keep Steve close as his orgasm built. Steve shuddered, his eyes rolling closed before he forced them open, gazing down on Tony like he'd hung the moon, pleasure etched in every line and curve of his features as he slowed and stopped, ducking his head down to rest their foreheads together, sharing air as Tony let his hands skim over Steve's skin, gentling. 

"You were gone for a while there." Steve finally told him, voice muzzy as he nuzzled into Tony's neck. "Where'd you go?" 

"Lost in thoughts about how unfair you are." 

Steve snorted, pulling out and carefully laying on his side beside Tony, very purposefully keeping from putting any pressure on him while he was so black and blue. "You're not usually likely to get pulled away with thoughts like those." 

Tony's eyes skirted over Steve's naked body as if he didn't already know every inch, finally meeting Steve's gaze from under his lashes as he pulled the blankets up around them, deliberately tucking them in in a clear message that he did not want either of them going anywhere. "I'd give just about anything to keep you here in bed with me," Tony murmured, pushing onto his side to face Steve and tangling their legs together, "you could be my kept man. No responsibilities, no fangirls flinging themselves and their panties at you..." 

"I want you." Steve told him, voice as steady as a surgeon's hands as he reached for Tony's hands, "I don't care whose panties are being thrown at me. I just want you."


	7. You Don't Own Me by Grace

Tony was wearing his 'come at me, fucker' smile and a pair of dark sunglasses to try to cut the pain radiating through his skull as the flashbulbs went off and people pulled him into conversation after conversation about things he honestly could not give a fuck about. 

He was most certainly dehydrated, and it was probable that he may have had a concussion from tangling with Doom the day before, but all eyes were on the Avengers, with Tony as their public face, and he was not about to let down the team by begging off on one of the few things he was actually good at. 

Being a public figure from conception, Tony was as used to the bright lights and flashing bulbs as anyone could be, so it fell to him more often than not to be the Avengers' public persona for events like fundraising dinners of senators that supported them. More and more since the Avengers had moved into the Tower a little over a month ago, though, Steve had been volunteering to go with him. Since he and Pepper were still in the awkward stage of their post-breakup healing, it was nice to have a partner in crime for these things, even if he fully knew that this particular partner in crime was more likely just there to keep an eye on him to keep him from doing something stupid. 

A gentle touch to his elbow brought Tony's brain skidding back to the present, and he half-turned from the semi-circle of bureaucrats to find Steve holding a glass of something clear that he hoped wasn't straight vodka. "Senator, if you'll excuse us?" Steve let the sentence end there, taking Tony's elbow a little more firmly and guiding him to their seats inside, away from the majority of the flashbulbs. 

"What's with the manhandling, Cap?" 

"If I don't keep a hold of you, I'm pretty sure you will be kidnapped into yet another debate about something that makes you want to knock people's heads together." Steve murmured, and Tony was a little startled to find that Steve was lingering very close indeed, the surprise translated into sitting in his chair as if his legs had been taken out from under him. 

Steve set the glass down on the table close enough that it was clearly for him, and Tony blinked, picking it up and giving a surreptitious sniff before he allowed himself a drink. 

"Small sips." Steve instructed, "You're showing all the signs of dehydration. I know you want to chug the water, but--" 

"Take too much too quickly, and it'll all come back up." Tony finished, a more genuine quirk of his lips offered, "I learned that lesson the hard way." 

Steve fell silent, but his gaze alternated between observing Tony to flicking over the room section by section, almost visibly taking mental note of who was where in relation to them. "Is keeping the sunglasses on indoors helping?" 

"Not as much as I'd hoped." 

Tony reached to slip them off, only for Steve's hand to catch his wrist, "If they're helping at all, leave them on." Steve murmured, "You hide it well, but I can tell you have a headache that could probably down Hulk." 

"Think anyone else has noticed?" Tony asked, not particularly concerned, but feigning it. 

"No, I'm pretty sure no one else knows you well enough to see the signs." Steve replied, voice low and soft in a way that was designed to be easy on the ache in Tony's head. "How long do we have to stay here for?" 

"Without being called away to save the world? At least through to after-dinner drinks." Steve frowned at that, but Tony was distracted from his curiosity at that by the gold-orange swirl of silk approaching the table out of the corner of his eye. Tensing minutely, Tony felt more than saw Steve react to his reaction, Steve’s arm draping over the back of Tony’s chair, his body turned to Tony to clearly signal that outside interference wasn’t welcome. Steve’s baby blues met Tony's gaze, his jaw twitching as his gaze dropped to Tony’s suit, then raised back up again, a glint steely in their depths, but Tony couldn’t quite determine what was behind that look. Tony breathed the words, barely moving his lips, “She’s...an old acquaintance, it’s fine.” 

Steve shot him a disbelieving look, but let his shoulders relax slightly before turning his head to the woman storming towards them with an expression as if he was already bored with what she had to say. 

“Miss Stane.” Tony didn’t miss the way Steve flinched at the name, and could feel Steve’s fist bunching against the back of his chair. 

“Tony—“ she cut herself off, eyes darting to Steve before she swallowed, straightening, “these formalities aren’t necessary, are they?” 

“Considering your father tried to kill me? I think formality may be called for.” That was only a small part of their story, though, and it said something about them that the attempted murder was small beans on the list of their history. “Has the restraining order Pepper took out on you finally lapsed?” 

Steve’s posture shifted as if her were preparing to forcibly remove her from the premises if necessary. “I’m reliably informed that she’s not here tonight.” 

“So you decided that talking to me would be a good decision while you have a shot at me without her here to get you arrested.” 

“We never—“ 

“We had exactly that sort of relationship. I made an oversight in thinking that Pepper’s restraining order would be enough of a deterrent when she was always with me. I’ll rectify that.” 

Her lips curled, malice an ugly colour on her, "You always were a spiteful prick. You killed my father, and now you won't even--" 

"You tried to run over Pepper Potts after she kicked you out of my house when she found out--" It was Tony's turn to cut himself off, his lips thinning, the glasses sliding far enough down his nose so that he could glare over the tops of the lenses. 

The ire roiled under the surface, ready to boil over, when Steve finally turned towards her fully, his arm shifting so that it was wrapped around Tony's shoulders instead of draped over the back of his chair, "Miss Stane, was it?" he barely paused, making it extremely plain that he didn't care to have confirmation, "You're not welcome here. I'm going to ask nicely once, then I'm not opposed to making a scene. After all, it might just get us out of here faster. Please leave." 

She was turning a shade of maroon that clashed horribly with her dress, her fingers curling as if she was about to sprout talons. "How dare y--" Steve squeezed Tony's shoulder, standing to his full height smoothly, smoothing his suit in the same movement. She stumbled back slightly, her fear making her suddenly pale at Steve's sudden movement and the merciless look that he fixed on her. 

"I dare because apparently you tried to kill a good friend of mine, and I may not know what happened between you and Tony, but it's fucking clear that it's not a story I'll enjoy hearing later. I've asked you nicely. Are you going to go the smart route, or are we going to have a problem?" 

There was a heavy security presence here, and Tony could see them inch forwards to back Captain America up--not that he would need it. "Steve..." He murmured, voice so quiet that he almost couldn't hear himself, "don't." 

Steve's gaze flickered down to Tony with a calm that spoke of a control wearing thin, then back up, "That's up to Miss Stane." 

She left in a cloud of rage and sickeningly sweet perfume as the security began to close in on her, and Tony let out a slow breath, bending his head and shifting his glasses back up his nose, "I didn't need you to protect me, Steve. She'll go straight to the first tabloid that'll have her." 

"You don't need anyone to protect you, and fuck the press and whatever story they make of this. What I want to know what Pepper's been protecting you from. I'd like to help her, if I can." 

"There's no--" 

"Tony, tell me." Steve's gaze was utterly steady and Tony felt like he was falling into those eyes, "Please." 

Tony took a deep breath, taking another sip of water to keep himself from having to speak right away, but Steve wasn't about to back down, "Her name is Ophelia Stane. She and I were...in a relationship. My first relationship." The story was difficult, but Steve simply waited, his features betraying nothing, "She and I met after I'd gotten out of MIT. Obi--her father was the man that my father trusted above all others. That's why they went into business together. My dad always told me that...that Obie was the man I could depend on. He liked that I was with Ophelia...I didn't realize that he'd basically paid her off to date me until it was too late, and the damage had already begun. He needed to control my work, to influence it before I even knew what I was building, and they were both willing to use her to make sure he got exactly that. First, she isolated me..." 

"Then she hurt you." Steve finished as the silence stretched, his hands clenching tight enough that his knuckles turned white. Tony covered his fists with his hands, meeting his gaze even if Steve couldn't see his eyes, "You might want to talk me out of going after her." 

"You're not going to tell me that a man can't be victimized by a--" 

"Abuse doesn't work like that." Steve's voice was still quiet, but there was a coil of power buried deep. Tony got the sense that the thread of anger at the centre wasn't directed at him, but couldn’t focus enough to figure out why it wasn’t directed at him. Steve seemed to be able to read him, a pinch forming between his brows and his mouth undeniably pulling into a frown. “What’s going on?” 

Tony shivered, suddenly very cold, and he knew that that meant he was more than likely popping a fever. “My immune system isn’t great. It’s just a cold.” 

Steve’s hand was cool as he pressed the soft of his wrist to Tony’s forehead, and Tony’s alarm bells went up, because Steve was never cold. “You’re burning up.” 

“I think you might be right.” Tony agreed easily, voice falsely light. 

“We need to get you home, now.” 

Tony shook his head, patting Steve’s hand, “I’m fine, Cap. We’ve gotta make nice with the big-wigs. Can't duck out yet." 

"Your temperature is too high." 

"Look, Cap, if it gets bad enough that I drop, then it's one less burden you've gotta deal with not to have to worry about my ass anymore." Tony tossed it off, missing the expression that bloomed over Steve's features as he dragged himself to his feet, grabbing the glass of water in light fingers, "Thanks for the water, though, Cap."


	8. You've Got the Love by Florence and the Machine

Tony's mind was not always the nicest place to live. 

His mind was not in the least orderly; the proverbial train of thought jumping tracks more than actually travelling those tracks, connections made and discarded, theories created and put through a wringer and instantaneously put to use. But that was simply how it worked. The reason why Tony didn't like to live in his mind was because, over the years, he'd learned that his mind was both his greatest ally and his biggest threat. 

Conditioning from an early age had taught him that he was superfluous in the grand scheme of things, and his mind often liked to supply the ways in which things would be better were he to no longer exist. He'd started drinking because that made it easier to fight against the undertow of those particular thoughts. Now that he'd stopped, his coping mechanism was work, and nothing but work. Which made any intrusion into his workshop an unacceptable intrusion when his head was too full of a raging storm that had been trying to tear him apart since he could remember. 

The drums were loud enough that he could feel the vibration through his chest, could almost feel the arc reactor shuddering in its casing. There was a crash that managed to be louder than the drums, and Tony whipped around with a wrench in his hand to find Steve rolling his shoulder back with his head slightly ducked, expression stony. The shield on his arm was clearly the cause of the crash, what with the shower of bulletproof glass that had once been one of the walls. "Steve! What the fu--" 

Steve looked up at him sharply, and Tony cut off from that look long before Steve spoke, "You've been down here for three days. You've barely eaten, and you haven't slept." Steve's boots crunched over the shattered glass as he prowled forward, every inch dangerous, "You revoked all override access, and didn't even acknowledge it when Pepper tried to break in here yesterday. Whatever you're working on...whatever this is, it has to stop before it kills you." 

"You were in--" 

"Pepper called me home because she's worried about you." Steve's voice was calm and steady, not a hint of anger or threat really, but Tony's lizard brain was screaming at him that he'd fucked up, and that Steve was going to count this as the last straw. 

They'd been together now for three weeks. It fell in line with how long people could normally stand him, though Steve was still an outlier what with having been friends first. "You didn't need to come b--" 

Steve was suddenly in his space, the warmth of him startling Tony into a realization that he was freezing. Tony blinked, and his eyes felt tacky. Steve reached down, taking Tony's arms in his hands for the barest of moments before they slid down to take Tony's blowtorch from him, setting it aside and ducking down slightly so that his mouth was at the shell of Tony's ear, "I needed to come home. I wasn't quite miserable there without you, but I was pretty damn close." Tony sucked in a slow breath, the scent of cordite and pastels on Steve even if he hadn't been drawing, mixing with his usual scent of wood smoke and soap. Tony felt like he was being dragged into a gravitational field, and Steve opened his arms easily, engulfing him in a hug that felt like an ache that had been there for months was suddenly gone. "What's going on, Tony?" 

Tony's breath caught, and he found himself closer to tears than he wanted to be. "N--" 

"If there's one thing you don't do, it's lie, Tony." Steve admonished before the word 'nothing' could even hit open air. 

"I...I'm just trying to make my mind stop. It's been a bad week..." Tony couldn't explain how it had been a bad week, because to an outsider from his head, it hadn't been. It'd just been a week. But Steve didn't press him, instead pressing a kiss to the pulse in his throat, trailing up to leave kisses on his jaw, his cheek, his temple. 

"Come with me." Steve offered his hand, and Tony took it instinctively, not even curious where Steve was going to take him. Steve tugged him along to the garage, going for the motorcycle and handing Tony his leather jacket and pulling on a hoodie for himself. 

"This's way too big for me, Steve." Tony told him, shaking his head. 

Steve's clothes were usually custom made for him and slipped into his closet without his knowledge, this jacket included, so the bulk that Steve had on Tony would be enough to make Tony look like he was a kid trying on dad's clothes. Steve shot him a look, and Tony pulled the jacket on anyway, knowing why Steve wasn't going to let him go get his own leather jacket as the warm, soft shell settled around him, smelling like Steve and the city and so utterly comforting because of it. Steve knocked his hands away, doing the jacket up for him and ducking down to kiss him slowly. "No one's going to recognize us like this." He whispered, handing Tony a blackout helmet and grabbing one up for himself. Mounting the bike, Steve waited for Tony to climb on behind him before kicking it alive. The city was as quiet as it ever got, the drive easy enough that Tony didn't even bother to take note of where they were going, his arms wrapped around Steve's waist and his head resting against his shoulder as Steve easily navigated. This wasn't the first time they'd done this, and Tony should have known that it was love as soon as he'd trusted Steve enough to let him drive. 

It was the one lie Peggy had ever told him, that his parents had died in a car crash, and he knew that it was a lie, but that didn't make the niggling thought of needing to control his own fate any less prevalent. 

A click signalled that Steve had activated the in-helmet comm units, "Don't you fall asleep on me now, Tony." 

"'m not." Tony replied, "But you are very comfy." 

Steve laughed, and Tony entertained the idea of making that sound his ringtone for the barest of moments. "First we're getting food, then we have somewhere special to be. Diner or hot dog stand?" 

"Mmm, diner." Tony slid his hands into Steve's pockets, and Steve leaned back into him subtly. "I'm in the mood for waffles." 

"Sounds good." The fondness in Steve's voice was wonderful, and Tony's happiness at that sound was enough to chase away some of the melancholy riding Tony's shoulders. 

"How far did you get on your nostalgia tour?" 

Steve snorted, "I think it's for the best that Pepper had me cut it short. I missed you." 

"You and I are in serious danger of being co-dependant, Steve." 

"There are worse things than loving the one you're with enough not to want to be without them for weeks at a time." Steve replied, and Tony bit his lip, ducking his head down against Steve's shoulder a little further. They pulled into a parking space near their favourite diner, but before Tony could even get to securing his helmet to the bike, Steve pressed into his space, nudging his chin up gently and kissing him with a reverence that made Tony ache. Steve took their helmets, securing them himself between stealing soft, tantalizing kisses from Tony's cheeks, his mouth. Wrapping an arm around Tony's shoulders, Steve kept him tucked close into the long line of his body, pressing a kiss to his hair as he led them to their favourite table. 

"Hello, boys!" their usual waitress greeted brightly, handing out the menus as Steve and Tony slid into the same side of the booth, Steve keeping his arm wrapped around Tony in a way that seemed to tip Mary off that they were likely to be sickeningly sweet today. "What can I get you?" 

"Genius here wants waffles, but what's the soup today?" 

“A nice seafood chowder." Mary beamed at Steve, "Made it myself." 

Steve flashed his matinee-idol grin, and Tony did not blame Mary for her flush in response, "Sounds wonderful, Mary. Thank you." 

"The waffles; what do you want on them, Tony?" 

"Whipped cream and fruit, please." Steve answered for him again, and Tony looked up, brows furrowed, and Steve ducked down to whisper as Mary left , "I happen to like licking whipped cream from the corner of your mouth." 

"We need to get us some whipped cream for home, don't we?" 

"Definitely." Steve purred, a smile curling at his mouth that had Tony biting his lip, eyes bright with promise. "How's the head?" 

"Full of thoughts of licking whipped cream off of you." Tony whispered. 

"Those are my favourite kind of thoughts." Steve told him lightly, laughing. "Eat up, though, Tony. I need you strong." 

Tony cocked a brow grinning saucily, "This is so promising." 

"Mmm, that part isn't gonna happen until later, though." Steve murmured, kissing Tony's temple. 

"What, _exactly_ , do you have in store for me, Steven?" 

Steve's grin was impish, "You'll like it." 

Startled into laughter as Steve pulled up in front of a familiar building after their meal, Tony squeezed at Steve's waist happily, feeling bright, "You're spoiling me." 

Steve laughed, kissing him softly, "You deserve to be spoiled." Steve told him evenly, "Let's go play with the kids." 

The orphanage was one of Tony's favourite places, though Steve and Natasha were the only two who knew that. "Steve, you are the most perfect person to ever exist." 

Steve wrapped their hands together, raising his fingers to his lips, "I'm only going to refrain from arguing that point with you because you have a date with a baby or two in there and they are all just as impatient as you are." 

Tony laughed, head tipped back and arm wrapped tightly around Steve's waist, pretending to drag him along. "This is true." The din of the orphanage was familiar, and the sunny smile from a familiarly harried young woman was always welcome, Tony's answering grin an instant message to Steve that he'd chosen correctly. "Hey, stranger!" Tony greeted, opening his arms to give the young woman a hug. 

He was only this friendly with people he'd known for years, people that he'd come to trust implicitly. "How are you, Tony?" 

"He's got a black cloud." Steve answered, "You have just the cure, Di." 

"That I do!" Chirped the petite brunette, grinning as she took Tony's coat. "Come on, Tony. I have a job for you." 

Tony had a soft spot when it came to kids; he always had. Di led them into the orphanage and Steve laughed as Tony was immediately swarmed by the kids who'd been there long enough to have seen Tony before. Tony had considered, more than once over the years, adopting some of the kids he'd grown close to while they were passing through this building. It was one of the first that Tony had checked on after the Loki attack, just to make sure it was still standing. This orphanage had seen him through many sleepless nights and troubled thoughts; Tony had been coming to hold the babies and talk to or tell stories to the older kids since he was barely more than a kid himself. And though his life would never allow for adoption with the amount of danger that would be put on anyone in his life, Tony could still dream of being a father. Of giving a loving home--something he'd only found with the Jarvises. 

Steve had found out about this by accident. They'd gotten into a fight early on in their shaky friendship, and Tony had left the Tower to get some headspace shortly after, but Steve decided he wasn't done talking to Tony and followed him to say his piece. 

What Steve had found that night was a nearly-dead quiet in this chaos; Tony sitting in a rocking chair in the nursery where they kept the youngest ones, holding a baby that had been premature and was barely expected to live. Tony had only been told that Steve was there after he'd fallen asleep holding the baby, finding three hours later that Steve had gathered the older ones into a story time much like the Commandos had favoured Tony with growing up. 

Steve had driven them home that night without saying a word, and the next morning, when he tracked Tony down again, it wasn't to finish their fight. It was to gather intel on what more Steve Rogers could do to help. 

It turned out that Steve Rogers was about as good with kids as Tony Stark, so Steve and Tony ended up, more often than not, coming to visit the kids when they could. It'd been one of the first things they'd started doing together, when Steve was particularly frustrated with this new world or Tony was getting lost to it. 

The screams of a tiny infant made something in Tony's chest twist, but as Di scooped the baby out of its lone basinette in the vacated nursery to put the bundle in Tony's arms, practically pushing him into his usual chair, he knew that, somehow, the baby would stop crying; they all did when he held them. "And what are you in for...?" 

"Edward was found near a church." Di replied, carefully not looking at either Tony or Steve, and they both immediately knew that the rest of the story would break their hearts, "He's been screaming since before he got here, and no one can figure out why." 

Tony hummed, adjusting the blankets carefully as the baby sobbed and hiccupped, his green eyes huge in his tiny face. Raising him to rest against his shoulder, Tony laid his hand over the baby's back, always vaguely amazed when his hand managed to cover a human's torso so completely. "Alright, tiny human. I've got you." The baby's arms stopped their flailing, one tiny fist bunching at his shirt collar as the baby started breathing a little easier. 

Steve's hand brushed Tony's other shoulder, and he leaned forward, catching Tony's eye, "Do you want me to bring the others in here? I promised I'd tell them about Minsk." 

Tony had heard the story from the Commando's point of view, but there was something about hearing the way Steve told his stories that made Tony ache inside, just a little; Steve told his stories as if he were not ever the hero, and had a tendency to downplay things that Tony knew from the after-action reports were really much more than Steve would let on, even when telling those stories with the children out of the equation. "I think I'm gonna spend some time with Edward, you go have fun." Steve quirked a smile, bending and pressing a firm kiss to his forehead. 

"I knew a girl who could do what you do once." Di told him as Steve left, hands on her hips as she looked at him, "I swear it's some kind of freaky juju that makes you irresistible to babies." 

Tony smiled; they'd had this conversation before, and he'd had it with her predecessor as well. "Is there anything you guys need?" He asked, and she gave him a fond look. 

"Nothing you can give, Tony. You've already done so much for us." Di smoothed her hand over his arm, her eyes so full of concern that he honestly couldn't meet them, "I'm glad Steve brought you down here. You look like you need it." 

"I wish I could give what you need of me." Tony told her softly, the weight of a now-sleeping baby in his arms comforting. 

"I wish you could, too." Di replied, smiling, "You're a good man. You'd make a great father. And I hope that someday you'll be able to be one." Di squeezed his shoulder, passing a hand over the baby's head as she drifted out of the room to go investigate whatever mischief Steve was up to, and Tony sat back in his chair, closing his eyes against the peace that the sleeping bundle of warmth brought him. 

The room was quiet with the door pulled to only be slightly ajar; when it was shut, the room was soundproofed from all external noises, and he'd installed personally a set of baby monitors that would activate the receiver in any room in which a recognized IMEI was present. If this little guy had been screaming enough to get them to remove the other infants to other rooms, Tony could imagine just how bad it'd gotten. Not for the first time, Tony idly wondered if he could make a tricorder for use when getting JARVIS to run scans wasn't an option. The screaming had to have a cause, but he couldn't be sure what; he could only use his gift with small children to help the little guy sleep. Steve would give him as long as he needed with the sleeping bundle in his arms, and for that, Tony was grateful. 

"What could be going on with you, buddy?" Tony asked quietly enough that the baby didn't even stir, sighing to himself as he closed his eyes and tipped his head back, his mind put into a spiral of a wholly other kind while he searched through every medical text he'd ever gotten his hands on to try to find what could be the problem. 

Bruce was better suited for this, he knew, but the others didn't know about his downtime; he wouldn't have told Steve if Steve hadn't followed him here, and if he could help it, he wasn't going to give himself away now. 

It was long minutes with theories conjured and discarded before the baby began to wake back up, a strange, coughing-hiccup signalling the coming storm of tears. Tony launched himself out of the seat, his gait rocking and swaying and bouncing as soon as his feet hit the floor, and he found a rhythm to pat the baby's back without even thinking about it. "Okay, kid. We'll figure this out, you and me." Tony sighed, listening to the baby's breathing and carefully trying to swaddle the little one tighter, his arms cold enough to be concerning. Once the blanket was transformed into a proper cocoon, Tony resumed his rhythm, humming softly under his breath. Tony wasn’t overly familiar with lullabies, but he’d found he could get by when push came to shove. 

The door swung a little further open, and Di flit through with a small tray complete with a baby thermometer and a bottle. “What kind of formula do you have him on?” 

“The usual.” Di replied, and Tony’s brain surfaced a distant memory on colic. 

“Do you have anything different available?” 

Di blinked at him, looking confused. “Um...sure.” She went to turn back to the door and froze, “You think he might have an intolerance to something in the formula...” 

"You probably tested--" 

"No, no we didn't. Tony, we didn't even think about it being an allergy." Di swept over to him, tray half-tossed to land precariously on the changing table, and she swept him down the extra two inches to plant a kiss on his cheek. "Thank you." 

Tony chuckled, shaking his head as she ran out of the room, looking down at the tiny, red face. The door opened again too quickly to be Di, and Tony offered Steve a soft smile, angling the baby so that Steve could wrap an arm around him, holding him close, “You’re incredible.” Steve told him, voice soft and fond as he pressed a kiss to Tony’s cheek. 

“I’m incredible if this works.” Tony corrected, and Steve caught him under the chin, leading his gaze up to meet those baby blues. 

“No, you’re incredible even if it doesn’t work, Tony. If it does, then you’re a hero yet again.” Steve stole a soft kiss, moving over to sit in the rocking chair. Tony moseyed over, laying the baby in Steve's arms and stealing a kiss back.

"I'm gonna go see what's in the formula." Tony told him, "You good with him for now?" 

"Yeah, of course." Steve gave a satisfied sigh, and settled back, his hand, even bigger than Tony's, seemed even larger than usual against the fragile body cradled in his arms. That Steve's bicep was approximately the size of the baby's head made Tony choke back a snicker as he slipped out of the room, drawing the door so that the noise of the orphanage wouldn't disturb them. He knew his way to the kitchen, finding Di tearing into cupboards in search of the other formula. 

"It should still be good..." Di muttered to herself, climbing onto the counter to get at the higher shelves. "Why is everyone so much taller than me?" 

"I ask myself that constantly." Tony laughed, then hurried to steady Di as she squeaked like a startled mouse and nearly fell from her perch. 

"That was not fair." Di glared at him, and Tony pasted on his most innocent smile--not that it had ever worked towards his innocence. 

"Sorry." 

"That apology would be more believable if you weren't laughing." 

"Yes, well, I wouldn't be laughing if you didn't manage to sound like a scandalized squeaker toy." 

Di swacked him in the shoulder, pursing her lips dramatically. She gave a cry of victory, coming up with an unopened container of formula, turning back and accepting his help down. 

"What's in the old formula?"

"You want to compare the two." Di diagnosed, "Good idea." Directing him to the other container, they read over each other's shoulders as they held the two formulas together. "We got this one by accident." She indicated the extra, which had enough different ingredients that it'd be a good try for now until they could try to get the problem diagnosed. 

"Happy accident." Tony laughed warmly, plucking down a fresh bottle and carefully concocting the mixture, testing the temperature on his wrist like an old pro. 

"If this works, I'm going to get a tattoo that says "Forget Iron Man, Tony Stark is my hero", and I'm not telling you where I'm going to get it." Di told him, her hazel eyes alight with teasing laughter, and Tony pulled a face. 

"Don't. Just. No." Tony groaned, shaking his head as they both trailed back up to the nursery, where Steve was talking softly to the baby as the baby burbled and sniffed. "Steve, Di is harassing me." 

"Not to victim blame, but you asked for it when you proved to be the pied piper of babies." Di retorted, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning against the doorframe as Tony handed Steve the bottle.

"She has a point. Have you seen you holding babies?" Steve asked, easing the little one a little more horizontal and coaxing the bottle into place. Tony knew the look on his face could only be described as "melted ovaries", and he didn't even have that body part, watching the man he was quickly falling in love with so carefully taking care of a baby. 

Tony's voice was a little huskier than usual as he whispered, "I think I know what you mean." 

As they drove home that evening, leaving a more peaceful Edward and a grateful Di behind, Tony wondered, yet again, whether Steve would want to have kids; to have normal. Tony himself didn't give a fig about normal, but he'd found that he'd been thinking about being a father himself for years, but only ever able to have his bots as his children. His life was too dangerous and too hectic even before he became Iron Man; he could not in good conscience bring a child into that. But Steve? Steve was steady. He was the steadiest man Tony knew. And without the Nazis running around, there were very few fights that Steve got into that he hadn't picked himself. Steve could have the kids and the house and he could retire and probably live in peace, but Tony had made way too many enemies for that. 

"Get out of your head, Tony." Steve broke through his reverie. "Do I have to go to Plan C?" 

"If this is Plan B, what was A?" 

"Asking you nicely to please eat something then go to bed." Steve told him with aplomb. 

"That wouldn't've worked." 

"Never does. Always still my first choice." Steve was laughing now, "Tell me what you're thinking about. Maybe I can dig you out from within." 

Tony sipped in a breath, debating with himself and losing, "Just...you. I don't think I can give you what you'll want--" 

"Tony, you give me literally everything I want and somehow manage to know that I want things I didn't know I wanted." 

"I can't give you...I can't give you kids. As much as I want to have kids, Steve, it's--" 

"I'm not gonna tell you that I don't want kids, because I can already hear you arguing with me on that, but I will say that so long as I have you, I don't care. And I wish I could make it so that we can have that one day, but I'm pretty sure I know your reasoning, and I won't fight you on it because those are good reasons, even if they're faulty. But you're forgetting, Tony; you are not the only one with a dangerous job in this relationship."

"You don't have the kinds of enemies I do, Steve." Tony muttered darkly as they pulled into the garage for the Tower. 

Steve didn't reply until they'd both divested of their gear, pulling Tony into his arms and hugging him tightly, "Have you considered that maybe I like the idea of keeping you all to myself?" 

Tony snorted, and before he could retort, Steve effectively cut him off with a kiss, his huge hands coming up to cradle either side of Tony's jaw, lips as soft as a breath. Tony let himself be engulfed in Steve's arms then, in the smell of wood smoke and soap tinged with that baby sweetness. Tony nearly collapsed in those arms, his hands shaking as he rested them against Steve's hips, his mind tossing up the exact measurements, interspersed with the schematics for Steve's suit and the ways he could make it better. Steve's hand wove into his hair, tugging gently, and the sound that Tony made was obscene, a laugh bubbling out of Steve in response. 

"Let's go to bed." 

"Mmm, dinner. You can't skip meals--your metabolism..." Tony sounded muddled even to his own ears, and Steve smiled softly, the tip of his nose tracing a line up and down Tony's cheek as he shook his head. 

"Doesn't have to be a proper dinner. We can raid the fridge, I know you have a few kinds of cheese in there...make a shore lunch out of it, watch a movie, try not to fall asleep on the couch." Steve trailed off, grinning as he pecked a kiss over Tony's eyebrow, "Deal?" 

"Deal." Tony answered immediately, voice throaty. He pulled Steve back in, though, kissing him soundly, sighing as if he'd just managed to scratch an itch that had been driving him mad. 

Tony fell asleep watching the movie anyway, and that he woke up in bed, curled around a softly snoring Steve, was not something that he questioned; the man he loved was strong enough to carry him--maybe it would prove that he was strong enough to carry everything that came with him, too.


	9. Transmission by Zedd (featuring Logic & X Ambassadors)

Tony was pretty sure that, if asked, he could not tell you where his pants had gotten to. 

This had not been uncommon a few years ago, but this time it was less to do with alcohol before the sex than it had to do with the sex itself and the amount he'd been having. 

Steve was just about on-par with his other vices, laid out over his navy blue sheets like a feast, all supple skin and delicate, delectable flush; his eyes still bright with laughter and arousal as he stroked over Tony's thigh, appearing to be drinking Tony in just as thoroughly as Tony watched him. 

"You never told me," Steve started, sitting up in a flex and bunch of muscle that made Tony's mouth water, "why you kept the arc reactor. Extremis could have..." Steve cut himself off, his gaze suddenly that of a startled rabbit. 

"Well, for starters, if I'd gotten rid of the arc reactor, you'd be without your nightlight." Tony bent his head, kissing Steve's knee softly, "But, more importantly, Extremis wasn't a devil I wanted to make a deal with. I might not be able to take a breath to even sixty-percent lung capacity, Steve, but I'd rather be breathless than bursting into flame." Tony did some thigh-stroking of his own, looking up at Steve through his lashes, "Do you want me to--" 

Steve did some contorting that was Cirque-level, kissing the words out of Tony's mouth. "No. No, I...I just want you safe and happy." 

"I've kind of assumed that...you've had dreams about it failing." Tony swallowed around a lump in his throat, "I could..." 

"You could probably figure out how to become fully electronic if you really wanted to, Tony. My nightmares aren't going to come true. Not as long as I'm alive to stop them." Steve's voice was thick with his conviction, and Tony swallowed again, sitting up himself and pushing Steve back to drape himself over his front, kissing him so slowly that it was like he was sipping the truth right from his lips, like he was going to take all the time there ever had been and ever would be to figure out what would make Steve happy. 

"You don't have to worry about me, Steve." Tony told him on a whisper, pressing kisses down the line of his pulse. "I'm difficult to kill, remember?" 

Steve let out something that fell just short of a growl, wrapping one arm around Tony and using his mass to push Tony down on the pillows, slotting against him as easily as Tony had draped himself against all that muscle. Tony may have been categorically opposed to letting Steve manhandle him, but a thrill shot through him as Steve boxed him in with his broader body, features protective and stubborn before he softened, lowering down to brush kisses from Tony's mouth. "You could be immortal and I'd still worry about you." 

Tony wrapped his arms around Steve's shoulders, toying with the lengthening ends of Steve's hair, his eyes soft with how much he adored the man. 

The happiness they were cocooned in was a temptation; the ring box that was burning a hole in his pocket calling to him to grow some gumption and propose, damnit. But Steve bent his head, settling as much as he ever did when his weight was mostly on Tony, his forehead pressed to the curve of Tony's collarbone. It was just a week ago that Steve had been the terrifyingly thin man he'd been born to, and the feel of Steve's bulk against him was a balm to Tony's brain that Steve wouldn't get suddenly sick or snapped in half by any of the assholes regularly trying to kill them all. 

He didn't know what would be coming for them next; invariably, something always came for them next, though, so he had to be prepared. 

Skimming his hands up and down Steve's flanks, Tony offered a coy little smile before he nipped at Steve's lower lip. "I wish I could talk you into becoming my kept man." Steve murmured, nuzzling into his neck and fluttering butterfly kisses over his cheek with those unfairly long lashes. 

"God, that's tempting." Tony groaned, "You're not allowed to even try." 

Steve laughed, "You try to talk me into it often enough." 

"Because you're too fucking stubborn to ever agree, no matter how convincing I am." 

"This is true." Steve snickered, kissing the curve of his shoulder, "But you're underestimating how stubborn you are, you madman." 

"I'm not sure about this. You will use this against me, but you may actually be more stubborn than I am, Steve." 

"I don't ever want to test that hypothesis." Steve laughed, "We'd end up killing each other." 

Tony laughed, "I don't think I could ever hurt you. I love you too much." 

Steve's brow furrowed slightly, and Tony tsked at him, rubbing a finger over the line between his brows nearly scolding. "Where did those thoughts take you?" 

"Do you ever...worry about it?" 

"What?" 

"I could hurt you, Tony. Even accidentally." 

"I could hurt you. I nearly killed Pepper." Tony pushed his hand through Steve's hair, enjoying how silky the strands were, sliding between his fingers. "I adore you, but that doesn't change things when I'm lost in a nightmare so deeply that I can't tell who you are." Steve cupped his face, kissing him deeply and slowly. "Loving each other doesn't protect either of us." 

Steve breathed out slow, sending shivers down Tony's spine. "I wish we weren't a threat to each other." 

"I'm no expert, but from what I hear, it wouldn't matter if we were both completely powerless; anyone who loves someone opens themselves up to be hurt by the one they love. It's a risk I'd take a thousand times to have you." 

Steve slid to the side, wrapping himself around Tony and pulling the blankets over them both tightly, the two of them falling into place together so that they laid on their sides, Tony's light shining out with Steve at his back, curled around him and holding him tight, "I will protect you from every threat I can. I would die if I lost you." 

"You're not allowed to leave this world without a Steve Rogers. Every world needs one for any hope of survival." Tony threaded their fingers together, turning his head into the pillow beneath his head and pushing back in Steve's arms. "If the situation was reversed..." 

"I can't bear the thought of losing you." 

"I've learned that for as much as I can't bear the thought of something, when it invariably happens, I find myself bearing it, even when I don't want to." 

"You're stronger than I am." 

"I would not agree with that." 

"Yes, but to you, arguing with me is a way of life." Tony laughed as Steve bit his shoulder, "Proving me wrong also seems to be one of your favourite pastimes, which is infuriating." 

Stroking his hands over Tony's stomach, Steve breathed him in, closing his eyes. Tony could almost feel them settling together, and it was not difficult to imagine their heartbeats in time with each other. "One of these days, I'm going to be able to have enough self-control to actually kiss every inch of you." 

Tony could feel more than hear Steve's chuckle, his fingers tracing over the line of Tony's abs, stroking sure fingers over the delicate skin of of his lower abdomen. "Will I get the same opportunity?" 

"You are the handsier of the two of us. Might be tough not to--" Tony laughed muffledly as Steve moved, rising up over his shoulder and angling his mouth up for a soft, slow kiss, just to shut him up. 

"I'll find the strength somehow." Steve murmured, moving back and managing to somehow press them even tighter together, the warmth of his skin incredible. "Now shut up and sleep." 

Tony laid in Steve's arms, the both of them knowing the other was still awake, but keeping quiet in the hopes that the charge would pass. They should have been exhausted, but Tony found himself completely unable to entertain the idea of sleep; a churning miasma of wanting Steve and itching to create something new making him feel like a live wire. Steve's fingers slid out from between Tony's, his hand squeezing gently at his hip. 

"Do you need to go?" 

Tony sighed, turning around and stroking his fingers over Steve's cheek, "I don't know why..." 

"Because you're a force of creation, and trying to stop that is like trying to stop a train with my bare hands." 

Tony's features crumpled, "I'm sorry." 

Steve laughed, "Tony, you never have to be sorry about this. Not with me. I'll come down to the workshop with you for a while, if that's okay. I have a sketch I need to work on." 

Tony shook his head, "You haven't had to ask my permission to come down to the workshop since you _broke_ my workshop getting into it." Tony pressed a kiss firmly to Steve's forehead, "Let's go, soldier. Quick march." 

They slid into as much clothing as they cared to, and Tony knew that Steve took note of the fact that Tony wasn't pulling on proper pants, since that meant that Tony wouldn't be doing any soldering. Steve had been very firm about wearing proper pants during soldering, and Tony had caved. Steve made a beeline for the couch, grabbing his sketchpad from the blanket piled on the end of the couch, Hulk's nest still in place from their movie. The bots greeted them both, and Tony watched Steve 'fist'-bump Dummy as he stretched out on the couch, crossing his legs at the ankle and setting his pencil case on the back of the couch. 

Tony didn't want to admit what it was he was working on if only for the reason he wasn't sure he could make it work, and he didn't want to put the possibility into the world without knowing what it'd mean. 

Extremis's ability to heal was a start, but it wasn't nearly enough for Tony. He hadn't been idly talking when he mentioned a neurological uplink between himself and the armour; Bruce's mention of nanotech to reinforce the cell wall from degradation was tempting as well, particularly as none of the Extremis test subjects had lived long enough to find out the effects of Extremis on the ageing process. Killian's notes on the testing were incoherent at best and non-existent at worse, and Maya Hansen's work on the program hadn't been documented really at all, which was infuriating. Killian had wanted to make sure that the project was his, even for as much as his "think-tank" was meant to take credit. 

Tony knew that it'd been a few hours since he last moved when he next became aware of blinking. It was obvious by his how deeply in pins and needles his ass had become, and the holographic notes taken of what Tony had sprouted off in his trance as he'd let the math take over. Steve was curled on his side on the couch now, sleeping peacefully and covered by three blankets because Dummy was smart enough to know that Steve didn't like cold. 

Dummy was prodding gently at his arm, a cup in his claw full of a questionable substance that Tony trusted JARVIS to warn him about the toxicity of should it really be a problem. Downing the concoction, Tony screwed up his face as if it'd help his eyes focus again on the holographic notes taken. It wasn't often that he went into his engineering trance; usually building his thought before he was certain it would work, but this time he had a better idea of the danger inherent, and kept Aunt Peggy's tales of Howard's "bad babies" in the forefront of his mind. 

"Saved?" 

**"Of course, sir."**

"Thanks, J. How long's Steve been out?" 

**"Four hours. His vitals and sleep patterns indicate that he is safely in REM."**

"This thing, J...do you think it'd work?" Tony asked, voice going rough as sand paper. 

**"I have no doubt that even if I told you it wouldn't, you would find a way to make it work, sir."**

Tony swallowed thickly, blinking his aching eyes, and wishing for the millionth time that he could ask this of the man who'd done more to raise him than his real father instead of the closest facsimile he could rebuild "Fine, re-phrase: do you think I should make it work?"


	10. Islands by Sara Bareilles

Pepper Potts had been sitting across from him, just a few hours ago; she'd been sitting across from him, looking too tired by half and too unhappy for him to be able to deal with. 

Pepper had finally done it. The phantom of her cool hand on his cheek was going to stick with him, it seemed; the promise that they'd find their way to being friends making him wish he could bring himself to find anger or resentment for that platitude, for the break-up they'd both seen coming since they started off. Any man who would like to think themselves worthy of Pepper Potts needed to have a discussion with Thor about worth, and he was no different. He'd tried to be everything he could for her. Tried to be a boyfriend when he'd never really been one before; tried to be a hero that she could be proud of, that she could believe in. 

He'd always been a failure. 

**"Sir, Fury is calling. Shall I tell him to go suck a bag of dicks?"**

Tony blinked, managing to flinch, though whether it was in the affirmative or in the negative, even he didn't know. 

Pepper had kissed his forehead, leaving a red lip print behind. A red lip print so like the ones left by the only other women he'd ever loved. Peggy, telling him stories whenever she had enough time to spare to come see him; Ana's colour was more usually pink than red, but on the day he'd lost her, she'd been wearing a red, pressing a kiss to his forehead even as she pressed a carepackage into his hands. The last kiss he'd gotten from someone who loved him for years. 

Tony hissed a breath, his hands balling to fists on the table, trying to fight the memory of the last time he’d seen his family. 

It was a tactical mistake to close his eyes against the drag of that scene. Ana had smelled like roses and tea, as she always did. Her strawberry-blonde hair had been cut short, a bandana wrapping the rest of it up off her face. She’d always glowed when her eyes landed on him. When he was three, he’d decided that the reason he’d been born was so that Ana and Edwin could be parents, even if not by blood. He’d felt for a long time, growing up, that his status as a disappointment meant that he was a particular failure to them. That trip home, Tony was being threatened into behaving at school; he'd gotten in trouble for getting into a fight with Rhodey when some assholes had started in on him with racist bullshit that neither of them wanted to deal with. Tony had proved he was most assuredly a child who'd grown up training under the tutelage of Peggy, the Howling Commandos, and the Jarvises, but as a result, expulsion was being threatened and he'd been called home by Howard for a solid scolding. When he'd gotten there, however, Howard wasn't, and Ana and Edwin had pulled him into the kitchen, sitting him down and listening as he'd told them exactly what had happened. 

"You did well, Tony." Ana had cooed, enfolding him in her arms, and even though he was finally taller than her, she had a magical way of embracing him that made him feel small, protected, and loved in a way that he'd only ever felt with her. 

Edwin had clapped him on the back, "We are so very proud of you, no matter what the dean says about the matter." 

He'd spent five days waiting for Howard to appear, and Howard never did. He'd had to go back to school then, taking an evening flight back to Boston to make it back to MIT for the start of the new week. He'd spent the day in the garden with Ana, Edwin firm in his belief that neither of them ought to ever be allowed to spend too much time in the kitchen. When she'd hugged him that last time before he'd climbed into the car, she'd smelled of the sun with her roses-and-tea, and he hadn't known then how achingly he'd miss them both until the chance to ever see them again was truly gone. Edwin and he had driven to the airport while Ana went to get Dummy to play catch with him out on the terrace. Edwin had held his shoulder firmly, looking earnest and caring as ever. 

"Don't listen to anyone who tells you that standing up for someone you love is wrong. Mr. Stark may not agree with it, may not understand it, but you have a good heart, Tony; you always have. Mrs. Jarvis and I love you as if you were ours, you know this. You've grown to be the man that we raised, and I cannot express how proud I am to have been given the chance." 

Tony sucked in a shaking breath and forced it out, because then he'd gotten on the plane, and he'd only learned that his mother and father had died reportedly in a car wreck, and that Ana and Edwin had been victims of what Peggy had claimed was the same fate, once he'd gotten back to MIT. 

He choked back his tears, feeling something awfully close to ashamed of himself as he reached up and swiped viciously at his forehead, wiping away the lip print. Sitting back and forcing himself to breathe, Tony wondered what Edwin would say about JARVIS; knowing full well that Ana would laugh at him, delighting in his creation just as much as she always did. 

She'd been so proud of him the first time he'd won a science fair, cooing over his invention and hugging him tightly, putting his trophy in a place of honour in his room even though Howard had dismissed it. Ana was the driving force behind his medical innovations; and in his darker moments, he knew she would be disappointed by his weapons manufacturing, but Aunt Pegs had always thought that that was precisely why Edwin and Ana had been taken out as well as Howard and Maria. 

When he'd gotten Peggy's diaries and discovered the lie she'd told him--the only lie she'd ever told him, he knew that much--he'd been sick to his soul and furious, and even though Stane was gone, Tony wasn't sure that ending it as quickly as he had did justice to all that Stane had done. When he'd seen Peggy next, miraculously on one of her clearer days, she'd held his hand, her dark eyes full of sorrow as much as he'd been sick with his own. 

**"Sir, your temperature is spiking."** JARVIS told him as he shoved himself back from the table in the useless kitchen in his section of the Tower. He shook his head, his throat aching as he strode towards the elevator to the workshop, headed with a single-minded recklessness for the box of things he still had yet to open, left to him by Ana and Edwin amongst all their worldly possessions. Edwin had written him a note apologizing for how little they could give him when his inheritance was so grand. Tony'd found the box when he'd managed to bring himself to venture into their apartments of Howard's California home, even though he refused to step foot in the house proper to the day he'd sold it. **"Sir?"**

"Not now, J. I'm having an emotional growth spurt." Tony hadn't opened the box; wasn't sure that he could deal with it even as he practically ran to his hiding place for it. It'd had his name on it, and while Howard and Maria hadn't save mementos of his childhood, he knew that Ana and Edwin most certainly would. Thinking about them hurt in a way that he didn't know how he could deal with the pain, and for that alone, he refused to see what it was that they had so carefully put aside for him. 

He lifted the box up to one of the workbenches, his hands unsteady as he lifted the lid of the cedar box that had had his name in Edwin's familiar calligraphy on a note taped to the top. 

The note had long since been hidden away from any prying eyes, and not even Pepper knew where he kept the things he couldn't admit to keeping. 

The scent of the wood was a memory in and of itself, and Tony closed his eyes again, swallowing back his heartache at the rush of memories it brought. Ana had liked to keep their clothes in cedar boxes when it was the wrong season for them, and the lingering scent of those boxes was something from Tony's childhood just as much as tea and freshly-made cookies. 

Sucking in a slow breath through his teeth in the hopes that the smell wouldn't trigger another rush of memory, Tony lifted the delicate tissue paper covering the items inside.

Tony faltered as he reached for the delicate fabric folded neatly on top. It was a sweater that Ana had knit for her husband, the shade of red so deep as to fall between blood and wine, the softness of the fabric and the feel of those carefully knit rows bringing a sound of pain out of his chest. Tucked inside the neatly folded fabric was a cream-coloured envelope, and Tony's hands were unsteady enough now that he very nearly cut himself on the unsealed paper. 

The letter was in Ana's more spidery scrawl, and just like that, he was sitting on her knee in the library, listening as she read him what she was writing to Peggy as his writing wasn't yet legible enough to warrant his own attempts. Her voice filled his head as he read the words, 

_'My dearest Tony, you loved this sweater as I made it for Mr. Jarvis, and I'd more than once thought that you may just have absconded with the thing. Last year, he grew too plump around the middle to fit into it properly, and he will finally be parted from it. I've put it away so that we may send it to you in your holiday carepackage as a special surprise. We both miss you terribly, but know that with this fabric is a promise from us both that we love you and will always be proud of you. All our love, Ana and Edwin Jarvis'_

Tony brought the softened wool to his face, breathing deeply, and Ana's perfume and Edwin's cologne were still there, and he choked on a sob. 

The next item was a leatherbound scrapbook, carefully curated of the memories that he'd never gotten the chance to be proud of. Tony's finger traced the first sketch he'd made of one of his creations; the lines horrible, but Ana had exclaimed as if he was Da Vinci himself. It wasn't something he'd brought to life ultimately, but it was something that he'd considered and adapted and put to use, and with every way that he riffed off of it, Ana had gushed her pride. The next page held a sketch in a familiar hand, Peggy's work depicting a family on a beach, though he knew that the child balanced between a hand of each of the adults was not the offspring of those adults. Ana and Edwin held his hands on either side, Peggy's clinical depictions drawing the naked reality of who his true parents were in a blatant black and white. Tony shut the book, laying it down with such care that anyone who saw the gentility would assume that the tome would burst into dust. Bending himself over the box, Tony forced himself to breathe past the lump in his chest, tears gathering for the first time in years. For the first time since Howard had belted him for his tears. Edwin had done his damnedest to negate the lesson learned that day, but Tony hadn't been able to cry for years. 

**"Sir, Captain Rogers is imminent."**

The next time in the box was barely recognizable; a plushy of Captain America that Aunt Peggy had given to him as a Christmas present, the year he'd truly stopped believing in miracles and magic in this world. He brushed his hand over it, the words JARVIS had said making sense, but refusing to make an impact, not while he stood in his workshop and saw his childhood overlaying all that had happened since. 

It was not so much that Tony had torn himself out of the past as that he was physically ripped away from it, the impact on his shoulder such a sharp pain that he couldn't breathe as he was thrown hard enough that he caught an impressive amount of air, the human-shaped _thing_ that had thrown him turning to watch the damage it'd done as he flew, impacting the windows that overlooked the elevator bank to the workshops hard enough that he broke the glass that was supposed to be unbreakable, and someone was screaming. The voice was not feminine, which took out Pepper; and it was not British, which ruled out JARVIS. And they were the only two who'd ever seemed to care since he'd lost his family. 

The voice was Steve, and as Tony lost consciousness in landing, he wished that his life was not this complicated.


	11. Blame It on My Heart by Karmin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After this chapter, there will only be leaps forward in time.

It was an intimately familiar situation for Tony to be coming-to in a hospital bed.

He knew it was a better hospital than most solely because the bed beneath him was soft and wasn't covered in plastic. His whole body felt as though it was braced for impact, waiting for the pain, and he nearly let consciousness slip through his fingers because of it. A hand was in his, a forehead pressing against the backs of his fingers, and Tony would know the feel of Steve at his side even if he were dead.

**Sir, are you with us?**

JARVIS's voice was odd. Too close, as if he were listening through a bluetooth in his ear, but too clear for it to be anything short of a voice at his side. He wanted to ask how JARVIS had managed to get himself a corporeal form, and what the ever-loving fuck had happened to put him in the hospital bed, but he knew he wouldn't be able to manage it just then. More alarmingly, Steve didn't react to that question, as if JARVIS had been asking for a long time now...or as if he hadn't heard it at all.

**Sir, you were in an accident involving Abomination. You and your car were thrown into a building, and you were injured severely...you are in SHIELD medical. Captain Rogers has not left your side since he brought you in a week ago.**

With the name "Abomination", Tony did a mental stock and could not figure out how he was still alive and in this little pain.

**Medical attention could not be provided in time, sir. As a result, Dr. Banner and I...finished your work on Extremis.**

That brought Tony a wave of shock that went so far as to twitch his fingers in Steve's, and Steve's breath caught in response, his head lifting as he looked down at Tony, and now was as good a time as any to open his eyes if they would let him open them.

Steve was blurry for a moment, the lights too harsh, but his eyes adjusted, and Steve was there, scruffy and haggard and still crying. Breathing as if he'd had an asthma attack, one of Steve's hands came down to curl around Tony's jaw, his other pulling Tony's hand further until it was pressed against his chest. "Tony." The name was all too desperate on his lips, the look in those baby blues rending him in two because he'd caused it. "JARVIS?"

**"He is conscious, Captain."**

That sounded right, and Tony knew better than to question it. JARVIS and he had a neurological uplink now, apparently, and he hoped that that could be switched off if he needed it to be.

Steve's look of relief was like seeing the sun after a lifetime in a cave, and Tony ached for a kiss. Reaching for a glass to the side, Steve angled the straw and Tony drank gratefully, moving the hand that wasn't wrapped in Steve's to hold on desperately to the wrist of the hand with the glass. "You scared the hell out of me. Out of all of us. JARVIS was even more worried now than the time you destroyed the lab by crashing through it head-first."

Tony wet his lips once Steve had taken the water away, squeezing his hand and feeling the tired ache of bones that hadn't properly moved in too long before the pain was suddenly gone, "Extremis?"

Steve's features were abruptly a storm, "JARVIS showed Bruce your work, and they injected you with it twenty-four hours ago. You started healing almost immediately." Stroking his thumb over Steve's pulse, Tony breathed in deeply, and then realized that he could. His gaze fell to his chest as he started dragging in deep breath after deep breath. "Tony, stop--it's...it's gone. You're okay. You're better than you've been since I've known you." Steve soothed, but Tony's head couldn't be stopped.

"The light--your nightmares--"

"Tony, stop." Natasha's voice cut in from the doorway. "In with me," she ordered, striding into the room after Pepper, who was crying because of him yet again, "out slow with me," she continued, her green eyes boring into his brown ones as if to look away would be to lose him, "again."

Hyperventilating the first time he could breathe deeply would be something he'd do, he reflected.

Pepper bent over him on the side that wasn't occupied, wrapping him in a hug almost as comforting as the one he needed right now. "I'm okay, Pep." Tony managed, his voice like blenderized gravel.

She socked him in the shoulder, and Steve couldn't stop himself from snorting in amusement. "Don't you ever do this again."

"I'd love not to."

Her features went from iron-strong sternness to a consternation that made guilt open up like a hole in his chest. "We were so worried, Tony."

Tony watched as Natasha gently bullied Pepper into sitting in a visitor's chair, then took Pepper's place on the edge of his bed, her movements as sharp as her knives as she tucked him in tighter. Tony was about to ask what all JARVIS and Bruce had tweaked from his initial foray into the design, but before he could even parse the full thought, the information bloomed around him, and for a moment it was as if he were in the workshop, surrounded by the holographics of everything that had been done. His breathing caught, and Natasha's mouth pinched tightly with concern.

Narrowing her eyes, Natasha drew herself up so that she was sitting straight, even if she was still sitting on the edge of his bed, "What do you remember?"

Tony swallowed, blinking back the images and it was as if the scene bloomed around him like he was back in the car lodged in a skyscraper. **Sir, your neural function has changed as a result of the link between your consciousness and the data. Your memories have been...restored, for lack of a better term. All that could be kept of them have been kept, and your memory from here on out will be a complete recollection of events as if recorded.**

"Steve owes me a shower and a nap, for starters." Steve huffed, shaking his head as he brought Tony's trapped hand up from his chest so that Steve could press a soft kiss to his fingers.

"That can be arranged." Pepper soothed, her gaze unaccountably fond. "I think your doctor is locked in a broom cupboard crying into his clipboard because he drew the short straw and ended up assigned to an Avenger."

Tony offered a wry smile, "And to think, I used to be the easy one they could mostly keep up with."

"Now we'll have to get you a good antivirus program." Natasha murmured, lips twitching.

Pepper brushed her hand over his cheek and pressed a kiss to his forehead as she stood to track down the doctor and ride herd until Tony was released.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Steve asked quietly, not meeting Tony's eyes--instead, focused on his chest.

**"Mr. Stark has been completely healed. So long as he drinks plenty of fluids once returning to the Tower and he eats something, he will be completely healthy."**

With those words, Tony realized that he was actually hungry under the slight pressure of his head that he'd taken to mean he'd had his eyes open in SHIELD medical for long enough for the lighting to give him the beginnings of a migraine. Steve shook his head, his free hand balling into a fist, even if he had yet to let Tony's go. Fear was choking him. The fear that Steve wouldn't be able to cope with the changes that his transformation would entail. The fear that Steve would finally smarten up and run.

There were two quick raps at the door as Natasha's cool hand slid into Tony's free one, her gaze concerned about all that she could read in his face. "Ask and ye shall receive! JARVIS texted us that you'd be wanting something, Tony." Bruce greeted, trailing Rhodey into the room. The scent of the soup was familiar and lovely, though it wasn't as close to the scent of Edwin's as he'd thought it had been for years--and the surfacing of exactly what that scent was, and what it contained, was enough to make Tony dizzy. "How goes the new you?"

"JARVIS has the training wheels firmly on with regards to the data stream I should have access to."

"Let's not put you back into a coma just yet, Tony." Rhodey scolded, carrying a seat for Bruce before falling into Pepper's abandoned chair as if his strings had been cut.

Tony plastered on a mocking pout, “Where’s the fun in that?”

Steve’s grip on his hand tightened a fraction, just enough to be a warning. “How do you feel?” Bruce asked, reaching for his chart and flipping pages idly.

“Starved and dizzy.” Tony replied. Rhodey raised the paper bag emitting the delicious smell, and Tony’s bed started raising for him, Steve looking startled because he hadn't pushed the button, and neither had anyone else. "That was me. JARVIS is linked into SHIELD medical's systems so that I can keep an eye on things..." Steve gave him a pointed look, because he knew that if one of them were in medical, and Tony was not there with whomever it was, it was down to the fact that he'd been kicked out to go and rest. "Pretty sure any system JARVIS is connected to, I am now, too." Steve looked completely uneasy, taking a deep breath as he smoothed the bedclothes as if Natasha had not already done that. "Guys..." Tony started, and Natasha took the cue, standing up and pulling Rhodey out of the chair, swatting playfully at Bruce to get him moving, a patently false.

Steve slid his gaze to Tony, tensing, "Eat at least."

"I will eat, Steve, but I need you...to talk to me. Please." Steve took a shaky breath and dropped his gaze to the bedspread before he seemed to draw himself up, "Please, Steve. Don't..."

"I'm...I was so worried about you, Tony. I nearly lost you again."

"And now I'm...I'm different."

Steve's gaze was steady, his hand reaching for Tony's despite his orders to eat, "You're healthy. Healthier than I've ever seen you. But this power you have now...it scares me."

The whispered confession was enough that Tony's breath caught, his throat tight, "You're scared of me."

"No." Steve's voice was firmer than Tony had heard it for a long time, "I'm not scared of you. I'm scared for you." Tony's features crinkled. "You don't shut down now, Tony. Now...I can't lose you to your head."

"You're not going to, Steve. You can dig me out of my head better than anyone I’ve ever met. Please—“

Steve’s hand squeezed gently at his wrist, a slow shake to his head as he offered a small smile that was more dull than a board meeting, and Tony was surprised that the crack that caused in his heart wasn’t audible to anyone in a ten-block radius.

Then again, it’d been a long time since he’d last been accused of having a heart, and look how well that had turned out.

“I’m not going anywhere, Tony, it’s okay.”

Tony couldn’t help but know that is was okay for now, because he had to wonder how much longer it would remain that way.

He drank his soup, and his mind supplied an itemized list of what the difference was between this and Ana's homemade soup, and he suddenly knew exactly how he could go about recreating that soup. Tony's next swallow was painful, his chest aching more now than it had with the gaping hole in the middle. He suddenly needed someone in there beside Steve, as if avoiding being alone with him would slow the process of this end.

Steve offered a small smile, nodding to the soup, "My ma used to make one pretty close to this."

"Ana used to make one close to this, too." Tony managed, "If I could cook without risking causing cereal to spontaneously combust, I'd give it a go."

"How do you manage to make cereal catch fire?" Steve groaned.

"It's a family trait, making things that should not explode end up exploding."

Steve snorted, "Mmm, I remember."

Trying to convince himself that the companionable way that they were talking was good enough--good for now, at least--was going to make him ache to just have the facade broken, but he knew better than to admit distress to Steve Rogers like that. Steve would kill himself to allay the inevitable, and when he couldn't, it would disappoint him in a way that Tony didn't feel up to dealing with.

The original plans for escape routes unfolded in his mind, augmented with the probabilities of whether SHIELD would call him in and annotated with the chances of Steve coming after him depending on where he rabbited off to.

Either way now, it's not as if he were the balm to sleeping that he had been since the start. His chest was whole again, and part of him loathed that Steve drove him to the point where he wished for the reactor back, if only to keep the man he loved. The man he'd asked to marry him.

There was no ring on either of their fingers; no sign of the box, and Tony knew that that was answer enough to the question he'd put out there, the assurances Steve had made when he was dying be damned.

Tony Stark was about to be alone again.

He only wished that that particular wound had been hit enough for him to be numb to it.


	12. Goodbye by Melody Gardot

Steve was watching him, Tony could tell.

As they'd begun to be real friends to one another, Tony had mused that Steve watched him in a way that not many did. It was as uncomfortable now as it had been then; the familiarity of Steve’s gaze no longer a weight he wanted to have to carry.

Since he'd been released from the hospital, Tony had been trying desperately to find a way to separate himself out; to distance himself and not have Steve chase after him. It was some stupid sense of duty that made Steve do it, he knew, but that didn't make it easier to silence the part of him that liked to whisper that he was making a mistake; that he had to let Steve catch him if he wanted to be happy again.

"J, let's black out, shall we? Lock it down." Tony watched as the walls turned opaque as if filling with clouds; the nanotech he'd built into the glass strong enough now to take a beating from a vibranium shield if it had to. "Turn it up."

The music blasted, and since JARVIS had no need to hear his voice at all anymore, at that volume it would stay.

In doing this, Tony had revoked all access codes and safety overrides; the only way anyone was getting into the lab was if Hulk figured out how to combine Thor's hammer and Steve's shield to make the ultimate smash.

JARVIS had not been pleased by any of this, but the bitching was at a minimum, all things considered. Natasha was scowling at him from the other side of the glass as it turned white, and Tony resisted the self-destructive urge to give her a finger-wave.

Concentrating, Tony kept the monitoring channel for the police broadband that he and JARVIS had rigged up to be the Avengers' early warning system on in the back of his mind, and brought the suit controls to the forefront, the gauntlet he called to him fitting around his hand, then with barely a thought to it, a boot flew into place, each piece after falling into place without any need for the conscious command. Unconscious commands were tricky with Extremis: Tony had to keep a very clear rule for himself to stop from pulling up the security camera footage of Steve throughout the day. Avoiding thinking about someone was easier said than done, after all, and those sneaking thoughts that could take the legs out from under a heartbroken person were all too powerful when those thoughts could very easily turn into accessing video feeds and pictures and whereabouts of the person you most wanted to avoid thinking of, just from that subconscious wish to see them again.

**Sir, perhaps you should open the workshop.**

Tony cocked a brow instead of bothering to really answer, accessing the cameras outside of the workshop, focused on the halls. Natasha had been joined by Clint, who looked to be examining whether he'd be able to access the ventilation system to get into the lab.

"You two know better than to plot in plain sight." Tony admonished, accessing JARVIS's speaker systems. Natasha didn't so much as flinch, but Clint looked around as if he half-expected to find Tony having emerged. "Is there a problem?"

Natasha drew herself up, her glare directed at the nearest camera. She crossed her arms over her chest, "I don't understand what you think you're doing."

"I think I'm learning my limits." Tony told her straight, the half-truth more truthful than he was comfortable with at this stage.

"Tony, this isn't going to help."

"What's it not going to help, Nat? I'm in beta phase; when I'm ready for public consumption--"

"Don't cut...don't cut everyone out, but especially don't cut him out." Clint spoke up, looking at a different camera--the one that Tony happened to actually be focusing the feed through.

"Leave the wisdom to your better half, Barton."

"When you brought him back...he was changed. You remember. And you wouldn't let him do shit like this--this isolationist fuckery. You coerced him into family time--you made sure he came back."

"You're overestimating my importance there--"

"I'm not, though. Not really. He could barely look at me, because he was so sick about what we'd all had to do to drag his ass back. You figured out he wasn't dead, you found a way to get him out of there, then you made damn sure that he wasn't going to be lost in another way. I'm not gonna pass up the chance to repay you for that."

"You don't have to repay me for anything, Barton. No one does." Tony told him, voice harsher than he wanted it to be, "You can't get in through the vents. They're boobytrapped."

Switching out of that feed before either of the ninja twins could respond to that, Tony expelled the suit, sitting heavily as he did.

That pain that he'd had shooting through his chest since the hospital flared again, and Tony bent his head, forcing himself to breathe.

 **Agents Romanoff and Barton have departed.** JARVIS reported, sounding nearly disappointed by that. **Sir, there is something I think you should hear...**

"Does it have anything to do with a tall, blond anachronism?" Tony answered verbally even if he didn't have to, still unused to the communication through his side of the uplink.

**Yes.**

"Then I don't need to hear it. Not now. Right now, let's just...filter out. I wanna see if this works. Let my subconscious drive for a bit." Tony grabbed a familiar, battered copy of one of Aunt Pegs' favourite books, heading over to the couch as information feeds switched to mute in his mind; only to be brought up in case of an emergency.

He didn't get to read to himself very much. Usually, he either had to get the audiobook if he cared enough, or con Steve into--

Or con someone into reading it for him.

His mental defrag had included a clean up of his memory; things that he'd remembered, but not as clearly as he would want. He'd basically been in a coma when Steve first read this book to him, but he'd heard every word.

Sitting on the couch, Tony let himself breathe deeply, and the words took him over in a way they hadn't been able to before.

Even as he focused on the page, he could feel more than hear the idle ideas scatter themselves into holographic design, waiting for him to be ready to give his full attention, changing as he thought better or becoming fluid as the idea became a hazy concept rather than forcing it into a set form. Tony found he wasn't disturbed by the creation taking place around him, and that for the first time, he was able to focus on the story because he wasn't inundated with ideas.

Blinking owlishly as he came out of the book, Tony looked around to see that the workshop had been filled to bursting with ideas that he could play around with. **Should I mark this experiment as a success, sir?**

"Absolutely." Tony laughed, shaking his head. "How long did I manage to stay reading without interrupting myself?"

**Four hours, sir. Had you continued much longer, I would have employed Dummy to make sure you have sustenance.**

"Are you _trying_ to punish me?"

JARVIS's silence somehow managed to be pointed as Tony dragged himself out of the couch's clutches, limping slightly at the pins and needles radiating from his ass. He let the locks release on the workshop, and the second that it was done, the door swung open, Steve standing there with a pizza in his arm and a six-pack of rootbeers balanced on top. "Hi."

Tony faltered, cursing JARVIS out mentally for not having warned him, and Tony could damn near sense the false innocence that would come with the whisper of 'you didn't ask'. Steve set the pizza down on the nearest workbench and his long strides ate up the distance between them, right up until Tony flinched away. Steve shifted his weight back, stuffing his hands into his pockets and letting his gaze flick over Tony as if looking for damage. “Not joining the rest of the family for dinner tonight?” Tony managed.

“I thought you and I could use some time together.”

Tony jerked a nod, beelining around Steve to reach the pizza. “What’d you get?”

“Our usual.” Steve’s voice was strained as if he were in pain, and Tony viciously fought down the urge to turn and wrap Steve in his arms. Even if he didn’t know it yet, Steve would soon decide he wasn’t welcome there. “JARVIS was telling me about the nanobots in the walls. What happens if someone gets in here and tries to fling you through the wall?”

“The nanobots are the wall, Steve. You could run and jump against them now, and they’d absorb the impact.” Tony realized he still held the book, and tossed it gently on the work table as he slid the box around. Steve went to it as though called, a small smile flitting over his features.

"You're reading this again?"

"I wanted to test out how well I could concentrate with JARVIS already able to hear my mad-cap ideas." Tony replied, gesturing to the few schematics still floating about since Steve had entered and the more delicate ones disappeared as a result.

Steve looked up, his eyes bright with curiosity. "And?"

"Four hours of reading, uninterrupted." Tony reported off-handedly, and Steve froze, looking up at him with wide eyes that Tony refused to acknowledge in the least. He folded over one of the ridiculously large slices of pizza, eating it as the Italians would, Tony remembered Ana laughing; with one hand free to goose the girls. Edwin had turned the most interesting shade of maroon at that, and Tony found himself able to recall it as if he were still five, sitting with Ana and Edwin in their little rec room, sat between them with Edwin's leg in a cast--the reason they'd had to order pizza.

"Tony?" Steve's voice filtered through to him, his hand wrapped firmly around Tony's arm.

"Yes, sorry. Sorry." Tony blinked back to himself, and found that his eyes were wet. "Just...my memory has changed. Much sharper now."

"What...What were you remembering?"

Tony looked down at Steve's hand on on his arm, "Edwin and Ana. They've been in my thoughts a lot since--"

Tony may have cut himself off, but that didn't stop Steve's baby blues from flaring, "Since you had to save Bucky Barnes?" He suggested, voice carefully even.

"Any leads to tracking him down yet?" Tony knew that there hadn't been; Steve would not be standing in the workshop if there were.

"I'm not too concerned with hunting him down just now. He's not hurting anyone, and I have more pressing things to worry about."

Tony got the sense that that more pressing worry was him, and he tipped his head to the side, "You don't have to worry about me, Steve." Tony's fingers tapped unconsciously about the solid chest where the reactor used to be, then caught himself, deliberately putting his hand down to his side as he finished his slice of pizza. "Thanks for the food--"

"Tony? What's going on?" Tony should have known that was coming; Steve was always one to run head-first into the thick of battle, and it's not as if Steve had ever displayed any other way of doing things, no matter what it was he was doing.

Tony shrugged, not meeting Steve's gaze now, "I'm thinking about taking a trip. Go somewhere remote for a few days, really test this thing. Be alone for a while." Steve flinched enough that Tony's couldn't block it out.

"Raincheck on going on our trip?"

Tony faltered, and Steve ate up the distance he'd carefully kept so far, looming into Tony's space and only hesitating for a moment before tilting up his chin to look into his eyes, "What are you doing?"

"The person I love more than anyone or anything else in this world nearly died on me. Again. Humour me." Steve told him, leaning in and catching his lower lip softly, testing the waters before he kissed Tony properly.

For mad, scrabbling moments, Tony let the kiss unfurl like a new blossom, his every cell coming alive in response to Steve. Then he remembered that Steve was, above all else, a stubborn bastard. Steve was scared of him, but Steve was also the kind of man that would jump into his fears without looking, just to make sure he could overcome. Tony's hand caught the wrist of the fingers still gently pressed to his jaw, and he pulled himself away, trying desperately to keep his voice even. "Stop doing that. If you're scared of me--or scared of losing me, or whatever, stop doing that. Stop forcing yourself to be vulnerable to it, because when you decide that you have lost me--when you decide that this change that I went through is too much for you to deal with--doing this will be the final nail in my coffin. I won't survive it. You have to stop. I have to go. If you--if the Avengers needs me, I'll come back, but until then...maybe falling out of practice will help you remember how to stop pretending."

With the first word, Tony had taken a deliberate step back, and every word after had seen his suit falling into place. He turned from Steve before he could be subjected to a response, and took flight secure in the knowledge that Steve wasn't going to run after him.


	13. I Am by James Arthur

Tony was supposedly still tied to the chair, his head lolling on his chest in a way that telegraphed that he was still unconscious from the latest round of beatings.

Extremis reported that his broken ribs were already healed, and the compound fracture in his ankle was just about mended, and Tony let JARVIS know.

He'd been grabbed, and they'd been smart to start: they'd thrown him into a Faraday cage and stripped every bit of tech off of him, then beat him for good measure. The cage had meant that he couldn't get a signal out using Extremis, and he was intensely grateful that he'd had the presence of mind (while being hit over the head exciting a coffee shop) to send the armour home without him in it.

They'd only had him for about a day, and thankfully the blood didn't magically disappear like the broken bones did, because they weren't realizing that he was healing faster than they could hurt him. The others were on their way, as much as he’d insisted that he didn’t need them to, but at least this time, he knew he hadn’t been stolen for them to get attacked. He could hear the hired goons get anxious, and that told him that the big boss was finally going to put in an appearance, which was entirely what Tony had let them keep him for. 

The tone was enough to stop his heart in his chest. He knew that tech. He’d built it. 

“We both know that this is the only way to keep your ass in that seat once you decide to leave it, so let’s not beat around bush. Hello again, Tony.” 

Obediah Stane pulled over a chair and deposited himself into it with the creak and groan of servos that weren’t being properly cared for. What was left of Obediah, in any case. There wasn’t much to be surprised about that Obediah had managed to get himself spirited away after the reactor explosion, only that he’d managed to survive it. Tony took in the damage that had been done as Extremis kicked into high gear to find a way to stop the paralysis. 

Looking down at himself with a wry smile on his twisted, half-mechanical face, Obediah sat back as if he were the same jovial man that had once smacked Tony hard enough to see stars, because the small child had talked to a man--a general--who'd asked him a question. "Not as elegant as something you could do, I'll grant you, but it's gotten me this far." Gesturing expansively, Obediah draped his hands over his cane, "Now, I'm fairly sure that you didn't manage to figure out that it was me behind those disorganized assholes who've been trying to kill you and your little friends, though I'm sure you noticed that they seem to be just a little closer to working together." 

AIM having a beam that could take out Steve, and HYDRA alive and well and working with Ross even if they couldn't prove it. Things had been...piling up, and he really should've noticed sooner than this. 

"Now, you managed to survive it once, but I've got the time to stick around and watch the show." 

Obediah had become more robot than man, the grinding of the servos something Tony knew instinctively he'd carry with him in his nightmares now as he leaned forward to reach for Tony's chest. Extremis tickled the back of his mind with a incoming notification: the robotic parts that Obediah had strung himself together with had been made by Tony for veterans and amputees. Which made them his tech. Which meant that even if he hadn't technically made them "smart", any additions to them (Hammer, Extremis diagnosed, and Tony had to stop himself from rolling his eyes) were vulnerable to his systems because they'd had to be integrated to his systems. 

Tony could not fight back against the paralysis, but he didn't need to. Instead, he found a back door to the neurological controls that Hammer had all but corroded into a jangled mess, and made the left hand they were attached to simply fail. The device dropped to the frankly gross floor, and Tony smirked at Obediah as he looked down at his hand. 

"Tell Justin that he really needs to step up his game." Tony told him, standing up and letting the ropes fall away. 

Tony had built the robotic limbs to not ever have a back door, not even to him; they were meant to be able to operate only within the normal human limit of force or speed, and they were build to last. What Hammer had done, to remove the limitations and install a few "tricks" of his own, was to create a back door using nothing more subtle than a fucking wrecking ball, and for that, Tony had his advantage. 

But Obediah's advantage was that nagging voice in his head, urging him not to kill this man who'd been like a father to him, really--hadn't he been? 

He'd tried to kill Tony. Had tried, at one point, to drive him insane. But--

Obediah reared back in a wild haymaker, and Tony reacted instinctively; this a dance as his mind calculated the next move by the subtle shift in weight from limb to robotic limb. Tony could kill him with little more than a thought, but he found he truly couldn't. The explosion of the door off its hinges at his back was not a surprise when JARVIS was informing him that his rescue team had arrived. A hand seized him by the back of his shirt and pulled him back and under the shield, the sound of the metal arm connecting against the vibranium ear-splitting--and then Steve was wrapping an arm around his waist, the move one they had used before while dancing as he swept them out of the path of the door--where Agent Phil Coulson pointed a taser at a sensitive part of anyone's anatomy and let loose. 

"Aren't you a little short to be a storm trooper?" Tony quipped at Coulson, even if Steve still had him half-bent backwards over his arm and didn't appear to be willing to let him go. 

"JARVIS...told us that you weren't hurt." 

"Well, I was. Hence the gross. But nanotech neutrophil might actually heal me faster than the super soldier over here." Tony's hands finally landed on Steve's chest, and he tried to convince his arms that pushing Steve away was a thing that needed to happen. "Just you two?" 

"Sorry to disappoint." Phil commented blandly, taking a slow step further into the room, and if his finger seemed to flinch on the trigger of his taser, sending another wrack of voltage through whatever human tissue remained, no one in attendance would comment. 

"Not at all. I know you've wanted to be in the field with the spangled one." Tony managed upright without having to actually push at Steve, but the arm around his waist was entirely too obstinate. "Um, Steve? I can stand fine--" 

"I'll just leave the two of you to it." Phil sighed, hauling Obediah out of the room like a sack of potatoes and throwing him through the door. 

Tony felt his entire disposition darken, "What--" 

"No. You got to have your say in New York. Now you get to listen." Steve cut him off, and Tony realized just how terrible he sounded; strained in a way he wasn't even when their backs were against the wall in all senses of the phrase. "I'm scared, you're right. You are pulled in so many directions at once already, I feel like a thief every time I manage to steal you away from the billion things you've got on your roster. I'm scared that now I won't be able to steal you for much longer. I'm scared that your head is going to be the only place you live anymore. But if you think for a fucking _second_ that I would give up, ever, then you're wrong. I don't care if I can't handle it. I don't care if I'm alone for the rest of my life loving you. But I'm not going to let you ride herd over me to push my feelings down. I know you, Tony. I know you're more scared of my fears than I am. Stop trying to take this fight out of my hands." 

Tony's breath caught, his eyes flicking down to the star in the centre of Steve's chest, his hands balling on either side of the emblem. "Only reason you tolerated that shit from Bucky was to fight another day." 

"Damn right." 

Steve ducked his head down, his eyes closed as he rested his forehead against Tony's, and as tempting as it was to kiss him, Tony was pretty sure he'd only taste like blood. "You like fighting with me or something?" 

"I'd rather fight for you, but I think the two are mutually inclusive." Steve sighed, standing a little straighter, looking at Tony with a determination that could probably drive a feather through a marble slab. "Let's go back to your ridiculous hotel and get you cleaned up." 

"I don't have a ridiculous hotel." Tony grinned at the look of mocking shock plastered on, "I have a ridiculous house." 

They walked out of the room, and found Phil primly sitting with a scattering of bodies that had been thoroughly punched out by Captain America, Obediah Stane cuffed at his feet. 

Obediah's one remaining human eye met Tony, and he smiled the sick, twisted grin again. "Just wait 'til you meet her, kid. It'll be fun." 

Tony nearly tripped over himself rushing forwards as a pop could be heard, and he immediately redirected from going to try to stop whatever it was Obediah was doing to kill himself to tackling Phil back from it, hoping he'd shoved Steve backwards hard enough that Steve had taken the message and hit the ground. 

The explosion did enough to demolish the hovel they had holed Tony up in, and for the second time that year, Tony found himself with a building falling on top of him, with his body the only thing between the building and a friend of Steve Rogers'.


	14. I Believe I'm Fine by Robin Schulz & HUGEL

"Steve?" Tony coughed, shifting gingerly and pushing upwards to try to shake off some of the debris, thankful that the plaster and ply board was lighter than the damned high school. "Steve!" 

The answering cough was promising, and Tony carefully directed the rest of the mess away from falling on Coulson, who coughed and nodded that he was fine, waving Tony towards finding Steve as Coulson groaned and shifted, slowly sitting up. 

Tony stumbled slightly, hissing at his re-broken ankle, and limping over to the largest pile of building materials, "Steve?" 

The pile shifted, and Tony dropped to his knees, heedless of what he was dropping them onto, picking up a hunk of plaster and tossing it aside to see Steve blinking up at him, a line of blood falling from the corner of his mouth. "Fuck...Steve? Fucking hell, what's--" Tony shifted the debris with more urgency, forcing himself to keep in mind that he needed to be careful if Steve was as injured as he seemed to be. His hands faltered over Steve's body when he'd cleared the last of it away and couldn't find any puncture wound in the scalemail.

"My...back." Steve managed, wheezing. Tony's hands fluttered, unwilling to move Steve when spinal trauma was a probability, but uncertain that not moving him wouldn't slow down the healing process. Tony concentrated, and found that while Tony had sent Iron Man home, JARVIS had followed Coulson and Steve back; the suit alighting on Steve's other side. 

"This is going to be a tight fit...if we had War Machine here, you'd be better off." Tony told him, then the suit began to disassemble, fitting around Steve carefully, and Tony sucked in a slow breath as the suit's arms lifted Steve from the floor enough for the back to slide into place, the miniaturized repulsors that made it fly so easily to fit around him firing now to lift Steve from the ground, an insanely high-tech stretcher. Looking at the place Steve had been laying over, a sharp protrusion of wood sticking up right between where his shoulders had impacted. "Jesus, that's...you're gonna have a big bruise." Tony breathed, keeping the presence of mind to go support Coulson as he stumbled over the damage. "Obediah's systems aren't registering anymore. If there's anything left, it won't be alive." 

"That's good. I've never liked him." Coulson groaned, leaning on Tony just enough to tell him that he really was injured, too. 

Thanking his lucky stars that Extremis could knit together a break in what felt like no time, Tony walked them both out of the decimation, absurdly grateful to see SHIELD personnel waiting for them. "You take Coulson to the bus, you two, come with me to look for survivors on the bad side of things." 

"You're injured--" 

"No, it's just that I'm covered in blood. I'm Carrie at the prom. Just humour me; I'd explain to you how I'm walking on an ankle that was broken five minutes ago, but it'd hurt your head. Shut up and move.” Tony growled, and the lower SHIELD agents scurried. Steve’s hand flinched as Tony moved to lead them in, and Tony shot them a look, then took up his hand, bending slightly to that he could whisper, “It’s gonna be fine, Steve. They’ll patch you and Coulson up, and with my usual perfect timing, I’ll be back out the moment they’re done so I can sweep you off to a weekend of convalescence—is it the weekend?” 

Steve’s mouth twitched, “It’s Tuesday.” 

Tony shrugged, glancing over to the destruction to hide the flash of mischief that Steve fell into the familiar rhythm of banter instead of twigging to the fact that Extremis had the time, day, and date constantly, “Sounds like a good spot to end the week.” 

“Be careful,” Steve’s grip on his hand was strong enough that Tony knew he was already mending, even if that piece of wood had broken his back. 

“Where’s the fun in that?” Tony joked, moving with him to the back of the bus, where two medics he’d never seen before openly stared at the amount of blood he was drenched in. The Avengers, Tony mused, went through a lot of medics...mostly because they gave them breakdowns. 

Sifting through the damage, they found that three of the hired goons had been too close to Obediah and the explosion he caused, dead immediately. Two others had burns bad enough that without immediate medical intervention, they too would be lost. Tony did what he could with what training he had, Extremis feeding a constant stream of information on the injuries he saw. It helped, to be certain, but as he helped hold splints in place and went through pair after pair of plastic gloves, he felt his resolve not to dabble this far into the squishy sciences harden. It was nearly an hour later that Tony was blinking back out of the flow of data and blood, finding himself pushed in the direction of Steve, who was still laying down--thankfully on an actual stretcher, but seemed to be in far less pain. 

"Hey there, handsome." Tony greeted, "How're you doing?" He wanted to reach out and slip his fingers between Steve's, but his hands were crusted with his own blood still. 

"I'll live." Steve replied, voice no longer the aching husk of itself. "It's apparently going to hurt for a while, but the tingling is a good sign, I'm told." 

Tony winced dramatically, "Pins and needles from hell, huh?" 

"Pretty much." Steve breathed a laugh, his brow collapsing into itself with a look of intense concentration, and Tony nearly missed it, but his fingers twitched just enough that it was clear why he suddenly looked disappointed. Tony's hands fluttered, coming to rest, one covering Steve's and the other curling lightly around his wrist, "If I promise never to let you tell Clint, d'you think Coulson will let us skip Medical and go to the house?" 

"Well, either he releases us, or I kidnap an American icon very publicly and he can deal with the fallout." Tony replied with aplomb. There was an eloquent groan from inside the ambulance next to them, and Tony flashed Steve a smile that could only be described as 'unhinged'. 

"Fine, but I'm coming with you two, and I expect you to allow Medical onto the property unmolested when they need to check on either of us." 

A snort escaped before Tony could stamp down on it quite viciously enough to kill it dead, and Steve grinned hazily, "Deal! Let's go." 

Another groan was the only response and Tony stage whispered, "Don't worry, he still loves us." 

Getting the three of them without being accosted by SHIELD personnel was more difficult than it had been to convince Phil to allow Tony the option to doing it, but once they'd made it to the lavish house, Tony felt something in his core relax minutely for being on familiar ground. “I’m going to come around to regretting asking this, but how many houses do you own?” Steve asked, sounding somewhat awed as the gurney he was strapped to was wheeled in. 

Tony found himself having to double-check that with Extremis, which entailed a search through property listings and a cross-reference of which houses Pepper and he had split amongst themselves under three dummy corporations and two legitimate ones. 

“He owns eight, though two of those are private islands and could probably have more than one house built.” Coulson answered just as Extremis finally tracked down that answer after about five seconds of data correlation, “Pepper took custody of four of Tony’s properties, and there are a remaining three that SHIELD is moving on with Pepper’s permission.” Turning to find Tony looking unimpressed by that news, Coulson shrugged, “We need safe houses. Pepper agreed with my assessment that having them on the SHIELD coiffures may not be the smartest of moves.” 

Tony looked placated, giving a nod. He stepped forward and turned to face technically just Coulson because Steve was not angled in any way to be able to see him, “Only room off limits is the master bedroom, Agent. I think you’ll like the bedroom beside the library—four doors down heading down that hall—and the kitchen is this way, fully stocked by now. My housekeeper here, Mrs. Singh, cooks towards my tastes, so expect some kick to the curries. She won’t be back to check on us for two days...she cooks enough for four days initially, and gauges what she’ll need to cook after two because by then she’ll get a feel for whether I’m actually going to eat.” Coulson looked unimpressed enough for both himself and Steve, and Tony tried for innocence, throwing up his hands. “Yeah, yeah. Let’s drop the scowling and get Steve somewhere comfortable.” 

The house was sprawling, but only had one floor, so it was easy enough to wheel Steve into the master bedroom, though he wasn’t about to put Steve on the bed. Plaster dust was caking him, and Tony shooed Coulson out, knowing that he’d be able to shift Steve when the time came. Steve’s whole hand flinched towards his, the movement completely lacking control. “You okay?” 

“A shower and I’ll be right as rain and I’ll be comfortable with holding hands. Now, I don’t have a tub here, but I think I can manage it to get you cleaned up, too. Interested?” 

“That’d be great.” Steve answered, smiling slightly, a shyness between them now that Tony ached at, but had caused and had to understand. 

“You mind if I shower first, that way I don’t leave blood flakes on you?” 

“No, I don’t mind.” 

“Do you want an audiobook or someth—“ 

“I want you to talk to me.” Steve cut him off simply. “Tell me a story you’ve never told me before.” 

Tony bent over him, aching to brush his hair back from his forehead, “Something I haven’t already bragged about, huh? Hmm, you’ll have to give me a minute.” 

Steve’s eyes were bright, cunning and clear as he tracked Tony’s movement of pulling the gurney into the en suite then moving to the shower. They’d showered or had baths together many, many times; but this was something raw and new to them, something dangerous when juxtaposed against the fragility of where they were now. Tony hadn’t had what others would dub “shame” for decades, but as he stripped off his clothes, he felt the stirrings of it. He was more exposed in stripping now than he ever had been with Steve before, and it tightened his guts in a vice, the tension of the thing like an overdrawn violin string, an ounce of pressure from snapping. Steve was watching him, and just from the feel of his gaze, Tony knew that Steve felt that tension, too—but he knew also that the prevailing thought in Steve’s head would be something along the lines of _mine_. 

“I don’t remember the two weeks after Ana and Edwin’s deaths.” The admittance came bubbling up, and he loathed it, just a little, “Ana had been shot while playing catch with Dummy. He was...Howard had told me that his coding was an embarrassment; that he was a beta test and had to be left behind while I went to MIT to create bigger and brighter things. I think the only reason why Dummy didn’t end up on a scrap heap was because Ana had basically absconded with him. When...I brought Dummy to MIT. Made You and Butterfingers, too. I like to think Ana would have gotten a perverse kick out of it. She never bred outright dissention, but if it came down to a fight between Ana and any domineering man in her life, they would find themselves politely decimated.” Tony had started the shower and climbed in, letting the hot water start to loosen some of the blood before he’d take soap to his skin and try to sluice the rest off. “You wouldn’t remember...There’s a reason that I wanted to thank you for saving them, that last Christmas I had. Edwin nearly lost his freedom and his life getting Ana out of Hungary...but Ana was not about to sit on her laurels, once they got to England and Edwin was sufficiently distracted, she started helping the French Resistance. You pulled her out of a burning building once. I think she was carrying a baby in her arms at the time, if that helps jog your memory. You saved her life, and she saved Edwin and I every damn day."

Thumping off the shower, Tony drew a towel around himself, noticing that Steve had managed to move, turning over onto his side. Tony rushed over to him, "I'm fine." Steve murmured, his hand shaking slightly as he reached out to rest a hand against Tony's abdomen. He looked up at Tony with a sadness that was tearing him apart. "I wish I'd met them. The Howard I knew...he was a jackass, but at his core he was a good man. I don't know what...what happened. You don't ever have to tell me if you don't want to, I will never push you for the story...but I wish that I could have...that I was there to help. That I was there to thank Ana and Edwin for raising you to be a hero." 

Tony's hand caught on Steve's, his throat tight, "We ended up right where we needed to be in order to drive each other crazy." Tony replied softly, "Now let's get you cleaned up and go the fuck to bed, hm?" 

Tony was usually the one who required a sponge bath, but he knew the song and dance. Steve's scalemale wasn't the easiest of things to take off, but Tony had had practice. Steve had some range of motion in his arms, though his legs were only just starting to twitch, and dexterity wasn't up to snuff enough to help at all with the interlocking fastenings that kept the suit together. Once Steve was laid bare against the gurney, Tony carefully wrung out the sponge, running it over Steve's face and neck, gently gathering water into his cupped palm and running it over Steve's hair. Steve closed his eyes as Tony worked his fingers through the strands, picking up a washcloth and carefully rubbing it over the skin behind his ears, clearing away dust from the nooks and crannies of his face. "Tony, I love you." 

"I love you, too." Tony murmured, running his fingers over Steve's skin as he cleaned it. gentle and soft and reminding himself that Steve was alive and warm and would soon be fully healed. "I...am not good at this, you know that--" 

"I do. Why do you think I keep chasing you?" 

"Because you're a glutton for punishment." Tony replied easily, bending over and kissing him softly as he stroked the sponge over his collarbones, down his chest. "Plus, you hate to see me leave, but you love to watch me walk away." Steve groaned eloquently, rolling his eyes, "You be careful rolling your eyes that hard, you'll knock something loose." 

"You'll patch me back up." Steve teased. 

Tony had to admit that he really didn't need to take as much time as he did, stroking the sponge and washcloth over Steve's pale skin and letting his hands touch their fill. Steve's breathing was deep and even, his gaze steady as Tony dragged his fingers down Steve's arm with just enough pressure to send the reconnecting nerves tingling, “Okay?” 

Steve nodded, the look of focus back as Tony made another careful pass of that arm, getting his hand to close around Tony’s as he came into range, and the feat brought a little more relief into his eyes. Tony didn’t even try too hard to resist, leaning in and kissing Steve softly and slowly, locking their hands together. “Are you okay?” He asked as they rested their foreheads together. 

“I’m fine,” Tony answered all too easily, and Steve shot him a look of pure skepticism, “alright, yes, I’m still scared you’re playing the nice guy card.” 

“Tony, I have never pretended anything with you, and you know it. If I were lying or acting, you of all people would see through that in a heartbeat.” 

“What about if I don’t want to see through it?” 

"When have you ever been able to ignore your head like that?" 

Tony took a deep breath, "That's a big part of my problem. I never...I never wanted to trust Obediah. I didn't like the feel of Maya Hansen, and seeing Killian made it worse." 

"You ignored your instincts." Steve murmured, looking perturbed. "What did your instincts tell you about me?" 

Tony closed his eyes, sighing deeply, "That I was doomed." He admitted, "I looked at you and knew I was in trouble." 

Steve had not seen him that day. Fury hadn't so much brought him in as Tony had stormed the building after one of the men who'd been on the boat that had pulled Steve out figured out that SHIELD was not, in fact, working under Stark Industries orders. The expedition had been Stark-funded, after all; had always been Stark-funded. And even though SHIELD had been made somewhat welcome, it was a Stark project, not SHIELD's. Reaming Fury a new one about that may have given him an ulcer, but the threat to sic Pepper on him with a phalanx of lawyers proved to be an effective one. Steve had already been subjected to that sad-sack of a ruse and Tony had gotten angry enough that he was somewhat glad that he hadn't been able to call his armour to him, or Fury would have been the one going through a wall. Steve, he knew, had no idea that Tony had seen him a long time before they'd met on that Helicarrier. Steve had been being poked and prodded, the look of entrapment tugging at Tony, who had then taken it out on Fury. Tony had brow-beaten Fury into letting Steve out because he was neither a specimen, nor was he a prisoner. 

Steve brushed his hand over Tony's side, bringing him back, and Tony swallowed, "You didn't see me, the first time I saw you." The admission bubbled up without his permission, and Steve looked confused, "Fury was...having you studied. I was informed that you were found by a guy who took being on the Stark payroll to mean that he was employed by Stark Industries, not SHIELD. I wanted to meet you, then I got there...and heard what they'd done...and I was pissed. After a stupid ruse like that, I didn't want to...I know who I take after, after all." 

Steve tensed, and Tony had to catch himself from pushing Steve back down as he forced himself to move, one leg falling over the side of the gurney, then the other, sitting up slowly and beaming as he dragged Tony into his arms and let his head fall onto Tony's shoulder. "Let's go to bed." Steve whispered, "Take me to bed." 

"We're not done yet." Tony murmured, kissing his temple softly and running his hands up and down Steve’s flanks. Reaching for the tools, Tony drew the wet over Steve’s shoulders, then down his back, and Steve shuddered into him with a small sound, moving so that his closed eyes rested against the cool skin of Tony’s neck. “I...hate to ask, but where did—what happened to the Rubik’s cube?” Steve startled slightly, then pinched Tony’s side. “What the fuck is that for?!” 

“I’ve been trying to open that goddamn box since they took you away from me in that hospital.” 

Tony had to extricate Steve from his shoulder for that, his hands feeling too rough against Steve’s soft skin as he cradled Steve’s jaw, looking into his eyes, “So you...?” 

“Tony.” Steve said his name in a way that Tony couldn’t quite parse, fondness was somewhere in there, but so was disappointment. “I will marry you. Of course I will marry you.” Steve drew him into a kiss, tangling his fingers in Tony’s hair. “Tony, tell me you didn’t doubt that for a second.” 

“You weren’t...and you didn’t answer me. Then I chang—“ 

“You didn’t change that much, Tony,” Steve groaned, kissing him again, wrapping him in his arms tightly, “I just want you.” Steve licked into his mouth, slow and tender. “I will only ever want you.” 

“How do you feel?” 

Steve laughed in whispers, resting his forehead against Tony’s, eyes closed. “Like I’m healing a broken back.” 

"Pins and needles still?" Steve nodded, his lashes a golden fan against his cheeks. Tony reached down, letting both hands knead at the thick muscles of Steve's thighs, Steve's hand shooting down to grip the edge of the gurney, and he shook his head when Tony hesitated, urging him to keep going. "Are you--?"

"Keep going, it doesn't hurt, it just...feels strange." Steve's brow furrowed deeply, the hand not on the bed folding around Tony's arm. "Keep going." 

Tony had never had to pose as a masseuse for an op, as Clint had, but he'd dated one briefly, and had picked up a trick or two. "Tell me if this hurts?" 

Steve huffed a laugh, "Tony, of the two of us, who is more likely to hide a damn injury?" 

"Oh, shut up." Tony laughed, carefully digging a knuckle into the muscle in a way that had Steve gripping his shoulder, a low moan startled out of him. "So since your poor, brilliant brain hasn't been able to break into my puzzle box, it's my turn." 

"That is cheating. You made the damn thing." 

"I made it, doesn't help me solve it." Tony protested, hands reaching Steve's knee at last, and Tony switched to the other leg. "When I woke up...you weren't wearing the ring..." 

"And I was already scared. In my head. Just like you get trapped in yours." Steve tipped Tony's chin up, rubbing his thumb over the soft of his lower lip before giving him a soft, fleeting kiss. "I'm sorry." 

"No, Steve--" 

"Yes, Tony. I'm sorry I got scared of not being enough to pull you back to me. I'm sorry I didn't immediately pull you into my arms and kiss you into oblivion. I love you, and I should've known that's all you've ever needed from me." 

Tony kissed him, wrapping his arms tightly around Steve and tunnelling his fingers through the blond locks. Steve hummed, his tongue licking over his lower lip and running his teeth softly over the flushed, swelling skin, "I love you, too." Tony answered simply, with so much pushing at the back of his throat to be spoken that it felt real that Steve gazed at him like he was reading all of it right out of his head. "I don't know how to give you what you need." 

"How many times do I have to tell you that you give me what I need before I know I need anything?" Steve asked, his teasing tone not even attempting to mask the worry laying beneath it. 

"I don't feel like--" 

"Is that what you feel, or is it what you think? We both know that thinking in this relationship is a risky business." 

Laughing softly, Tony shook his head more to eskimo kiss the love of his life than it was an actual denial. "Mostly what I feel around you is...gooey." 

"In a good way, right? Not like you just got yourself swallowed by a caterpillar the size of a subway train and had to blast yourself out?"

Tony chuckled, shaking his head at the look of adorable disgust that Steve had slipped into, "Not gooey, then; I'm bad at adjectives, give me something else to do." 

"Kiss me." Steve ordered immediately, and Tony was all too happy to oblige, wrapping his arms around Steve's shoulders and throwing himself into the kiss with abandon. Steve let out a moan that made Tony's toes curl and his heart skip a beat in his chest, but also brought him back enough to know that he had to pull away, if only a little, "What--?"

"Bed. I need to get you to bed. Before that mouth of yours turns my brain all the way off." 

Rubbing his hands over Steve's shoulders, massaging his neck, Tony nipped at Steve's lower lip, pushing gently to get him more securely n the gurney. "I think I can--" 

"You are not trying to walk right now, Steven. You are going to go to sleep for the next twelve hours, then if you can wiggle your toes without that little pinch between your eyebrows that tells me there is pain, I will help you walk." 

"Fine, push me around while you have the opportunity." Steve sighed dramatically, and Tony snorted, rolling his eyes as he did a hasty clean up after them, wheeling Steve out to the bedroom and taking his weight as he levered Steve down onto the bed, "Please tell me you didn't just injure yourself." 

"Even if I did, you will never prove it." Tony taunted grandly, "Do you need food before sleep happens?" Steve winced, and Tony nodded once, "I know just what to get you." Tony kissed him softly once before turning to go forage, only just remembering that Phil was there and he would therefore require pants. Tony tripped into a pair of sweatpants, and the fact that they weren't Steve's size was more startling to him than it would have been if they were. 

Tony sliced into a mango, the juice welling up and running down his wrist almost immediately, and Tony grinned in anticipation of just how sweet and _gorgeous_ this mango was going to turn out. Humming to himself as he sliced, Tony was scared of the building hope swirling in his chest, but he was determined to ignore that. "Why are you humming a sad song?" 

Managing not to jump, Tony's brow furrowed, "It's not a sad--" 

"'Smile' is both a sad song and it is totally out of character for you." Phil replied, "Do you need to talk?" 

"Talking...not really high on my list right now. I'd rather finish this and get Steve some--" 

"Tony, you and I both know that things aren't magically fixed like this." 

"Can't let a guy live in his delusions, can you?" 

"Nope. Not if they'll just cause you problems later." Phil replied with aplomb, plucking an orange out of the bowl. "If you talk to me, you won't have to be interrogated by Natasha." 

Tony winced, shaking his head. "You'd sic her on me? Really? Mean!" 

"What makes you think I'd be able to stop her without the full rundown of information? She nearly came with us." 

Tony chuckled, shaking his head. "Of course she did." 

Phil took a seat, looking placidly expectant.

"There's not a lot I can do...Steve, he take care of me, and it's not fair, and I know that--but I could take care of him, his nightmares. It's the only thing that ever worked. And now it's gone, and he's scared--I don't know how to fix any of this." 

"You don't have to fix it, Tony." 

"Like hell. Steve needs--" 

"He needs to be happy." Phil interrupted smoothly, "You, for whatever mad reason, seem to make him happy. I don't claim to understand it, I am quite sure that I don't want to at this point, but this little...escapade? That made him soundly unhappy, and you know it. What were you thinking?" 

"That I don't make him very happy a lot of the time. Frustrated, annoyed, resigned--" 

"Tony, have you ever stopped to consider that maybe Steve taking care of you is helping him take care of himself? By all accounts, Steve's been taking care of someone for years. His mother, Barnes, his men...he's one of those people who flourishes when they're needed." 

"What happens when I need him too much?"

"What makes you think that this isn't an even split between you? That he needs you as much as you need him, and that it stays even?" 

Tony shook his head, "Things don't work like that." 

"They do with you two."


	15. 99 Luftballons by Kaleida (cover)

Tony woke slowly, sprawled on his stomach over the bed, one arm flung over Steve's waist and their legs tangled. Steve's fingers were twined with his, and as Tony came closer to waking, he slid towards Steve, turning to tuck his face in Steve's chest, curling into him as Steve moaned and slid his free hand over Tony's back, pulling him in even tighter, the hand tracing up over the muscular line of his flank, weaving into Tony's hair as he pressed a loose kiss to those curls. running the backs of his fingers back down over the line of Tony's spine. "How do you feel?" Tony asked sleepily. 

"Good." Steve answered, shifting slightly and laying Tony on his back, shifting over him, smiling brightly as he ran a thumb over Tony's brow, brushing his hair away. "Even better than yesterday morning..." 

Tony looked confused, "What?" 

"I woke up in bed with you. Wouldn't matter if I still couldn't move, waking up with you makes this morning better than yesterday's." Tony rolled his eyes, smiling despite himself, "Mock all you want, I'm allowed my weakness." 

Tony drew a deep breath, fingers idly trailing over soft, pale skin as if relearning it, taking in the hollow of Steve's cheeks; the feathers of his lashes and the reddish gilt to his blond hair in the sunlight spilling in the window. He was a work of art in a way that Tony had to wonder how the hell he'd gotten so lucky. 

A gentle rose began to climb over Steve's skin, and Tony brushed his palm against the heating skin of Steve's cheek, asking the question without words, "You know, you looked at me the same way when...when I was..." Tony's brow crinkled further, his head shaking slowly. 

"Pretty sure you were still Steve Rogers, even when you were shorter than me." The memory of the body Steve had been born into pressed against his much like Steve's enhanced body was pressing against his now made Tony ache to have been able to go back to erase that insecurity before it'd been able to start. "What the hell did I do to deserve you?" 

Steve laughed, "I'm here on credit." 

Pinching Steve's side, Tony put on a pout, gently pushing Steve over onto his back and bent over his chest, trailing a line of kisses down, starting at his lips. "Okay, dexterity test." Tony groaned as he dragged himself away from Steve's body, "I'm in charge of making sure you heal properly." 

Steve raised his hands, tapping his fingers and thumb together with his usual amount of speed, "The pins and needles are gone," Tony could nearly hear that there was something Steve was leaving out and he narrowed his eyes dramatically, not moving, "my legs feel a little...stilted. Like trying to walk on a foot that's lost feeling, before you even get pins and needles." 

"That sounds entirely unpleasant." Tony frowned, "We should call--" 

"Nope, you should get back down here and kiss me for a few more hours." 

"With your metabolism, you'll waste away." Tony snorted. "Twenty minutes, then food." 

"Jeez, I'm starting to consider getting injured more often." Steve teased, pulling Tony in. "You're willingly talking about food without bribery or coercion? Might be worth it." 

"I will put you in a room made out of soft things." 

Steve grinned at the idle threat, and Tony shifted so that he was laying pressed against Steve's side, tucked under one arm, just close enough to kiss. "How are you feeling?" 

"I'm grand." Tony answered with a throaty laugh, "I like waking up next to you, too." Teasing his fingers through Steve's hair, Tony frowned suddenly, "Did you have nightmares?" 

"No. No nightmares." Steve caught his hand, tracing the callouses and scars without looking, as familiar with Tony's hands as he was with his own. "I know you can instantly know, so what's going on in New York today?" 

Extremis pulled up the information, and Tony hummed, "It's boring there without us." 

Steve chuckled, "Nah, it's boring there without _you_ , I'm just window dressing." 

Tony snorted and bit gently at Steve's jaw then licked over the mark. "Are you accusing me of troublemaking?" 

"Tony, I would never accuse you of such a thing!" Steve put on his most scandalized voice, his blue eyes dancing with laughter as they shifted, now facing each other. "I'm innocent, I swear." 

"Ha!" 

Steve's thumb brushed back and forth over Tony's cheek, licking his lower lip as his gaze grew thoughtful, his eyes shuttering, "We need to go home and get that ring."

"You didn't bring it with you?" 

"I didn't bring anything with me, just the clothes on my back, the shield, and the suit." Steve told him. "JARVIS told us that you were in trouble...then when the suit came home without you in it, I panicked. JARVIS didn't tell me how deeply you were in trouble, and I think you and I both know that he did that on purpose, and I'm going to be mad at you for a while because of it." 

Even though he was definitely angry, Steve still kissed him. "Admit it, though; you wouldn't let me have any fun if JARVIS actually told you when I was in danger." 

"You could've died." 

"He wanted to pull the reactor out of my chest." Tony admitted, and Steve froze, "Imagine the surprise he would've had if he'd gotten close enough to try." The quiet, calm, steady way that Tony spoke was more of a threat than any physical display ever could be, and Steve sucked in a slow breath. 

"I can't lose you." 

"I think I've more than proven, at this stage of the game, that you can't. Even when I tried to lose you, you just caught up." 

Steve shook his head, nudging impossibly closer, "I'm still tempted to take Pepper's advice and just sit on you until you behave." 

Tony shot him a look of confusion, "Why would she think that that would work?" 

"Because, unlike her, you can't bench press my weight, so escape would be difficult." Steve told him sweetly, pressing a kiss to the furrow between his brows. 

"Not that difficult: unlike her, you are ticklish and I could use that to my advantage without running the risk of a stiletto heel to the heart in revenge." 

Steve scowled as convincingly as he could, throwing in a little bit of pout for good measure, and Tony groaned at that, sliding his leg over Steve's, pressing their foreheads together mostly to make it so that he couldn't see the pout, but partially in order to be close. Steve's fingers skated over his side, down his back, over scars that he'd been scared to show Steve the first time they'd gotten close, and Tony tried to remember why he'd been worried about the way Steve would look at him. There had been one night, about a month after the first time Tony had let Steve get an eyeful of the roadmap of damage on his skin, that Steve had asked him for the story attached to one of those scars. Over the course of two months, Steve had prised out the story of every scar Tony could remember the story behind. It hadn't changed the way Steve had looked at him. Not at all. 

"I'm sorry." 

Steve pulled back a little, something quite like shock flashing over his features before he tamped it down, "Don't be." Steve moved in, his nose brushing back and forth over Tony's before he finally kissed him, "You were scared. Now if only you would be scared of things like hurtling into the bay in armour that's too heavy to move and run away from those things, then we'd be set." 

"You don't want me to promise never to do it again?" 

"Want, yes. Demand, no. Neither of us are great at this, Tony. When it comes down to it, I'll chase you to the ends of the earth if I have to. The only thing I'll ever ask for is that if you're going to break my heart in a way that you can't fix, don't lose everything we've built together." 

Tony was having trouble breathing, swallowing heavily and trying very hard not to cry as his eyes raked over Steve's open features. Steve was asking him not to retreat into himself; was expressing the hope that the steady ground they'd found together would stay beneath Tony's feet, even if Tony didn't want to have him there for balance. "If there ever comes a time when I break your heart like that, check for signs of Loki-possession or me having been replaced by an evil clone." 

Steve grinned, taking Tony's hand in his. "I'm pretty sure I can walk now." 

"You took days to heal up after the Helicarrier." 

"I had a knock-down, drag-out fight with a guy with a metal arm before riding a crashing Helicarrier into a canal. I was a little more injured then than I was here." Steve retorted, rolling his eyes. 

"Fine, but I see one twitch that indicates discomfort, and I'll handcuff you to the bed, and not in a fun way." 

Steve looked utterly scandalized, "You're telling me that I would be trapped here, helpless, and you wouldn't take advantage of me?" 

"No, you'd just be trapped here, trying to figure out how to use a pen to lockpick your way out of my cuffs." 

"Your cuffs? The ones you've been building that are bad guy-strength?" 

"Yep, and that hint of nervousness in your voice is gratifying." 

"I thought it might be." Steve murmured flirtatiously, and Tony had to laugh. Steve grinned, leaning in to kiss him sweetly. "You’ve been having both Hulk and Natasha test them for you, after all.” 

Tony pulled himself away from Steve and all of that temptation, padding out to the kitchen and trying to tacitly ignore the fact that Steve was endeavouring to get out of bed behind him, pulling on pants and cursing under his breath when he nearly overbalanced on his newly-healed ability to walk. 

He was walking slowly, but he was walking, and Tony took what they could get. "When we get home, let's disappear together." 

"Do you have somewhere in mind?" Tony asked, pulling down plates and readying supplies. 

Steve sat with a barely-restrained groan, and Tony forced back a sigh, "Everywhere. I just want to take you away for a while." 

Tony tried to hold back a grin at that, preparing a cup of coffee and ducking away from meeting Steve's gaze until Steve's large hand wrapped around his wrist, tugging gently until Tony was close enough to pull into his lap. "We are both too ol--" 

Steve shut him up with a kiss, deep enough that Tony felt like a CD player that'd been hit hard enough to start skipping. "What was that?" Steve asked, teasing, and Tony growled, pulling him back into a kiss. 

"You two are both too old for lap-sitting." Phil's eye-roll was somehow carried in his voice, and Tony nipped a bite to Steve's lower lip, grinning despite the interruption. 

"How overdue are we for something...catastrophic?" Steve asked of Phil, obstinately refusing to let go of Tony. 

"Obediah mentioned a "her". He said it'd be fun when I met her. I think we're well into hurtling towards a crisis, Steve." Tony replied, squirming despite his full knowledge that Steve was not about to let him go for something as trivial as squirming. 

"I don't think I want to meet the woman who could make Obediah organize all the Big Bads that the Avengers collect." Phil sighed, pulling a carton of juice out of the fridge and eyeing it suspiciously. 

"This is a good point." Tony groaned, "If some woman dragged him out of villainous retirement, I'd like to not meet this woman." 

Steve looked between the two of them, and shrugged, "We'll deal with it." 

"We--We'll _deal_ with it?!" Tony let himself sound a little hysterical about that. 

"If she's a mastermind behind all that's happened over the last few months with AIM and HYDRA, then we have problems, Steve." 

Tony's features crumpled in sudden confusion, "How is it that I'm the one worried here?" 

"Some kind of weird Stockholm syndrome wherein you're learning self preservation?" Phil offered. 

"More concerning is that Steve seems to be losing his sense of self preservation." Tony pointed out, and Steve's grip loosened enough that Tony took the opportunity to slip out of his grip, padding over to the counter. Steve pouted at him, and Tony refused to deign that with any kind of acknowledgement; Steve was a national icon, he ought not be pouting because his forty-seven-year-old fiancée had climbed off his lap. "He's mostly okay." 

"Stiffness." Phil diagnosed idly, "You should be good if you move around." 

Steve gestured to Phil, eyebrows raised and mouth twisted pointedly, "Thank you! He keeps insisting I take it easy." 

"That might also work." Phil allowed, and Steve groaned as Tony threw his hands up in celebration. 

Steve was laughing, and Phil was shaking his head in that fond way that told them that while they may be certifiable, Phil was not going to turn them in due to the combination of fondness and paperwork that would be caused by the process, and Tony's heart stopped in his chest as Extremis provided a piece of information that made Tony completely lose his breath, the smile dropping from his face and the world dropping out from under him. 

"Tony!" Steve shouted, moving far too quickly for his injury, catching Tony's other arm as Phil came around on his other side. "Tony?" 

"Sh--Steve, she's..." Tony managed, voice choked and eyes already full. He wasn't sure he could feel his limbs but for a dull roar of tingling in his fingers and toes, "Steve, Peggy--" 

The look that came over Steve's face was enough to cut him off again, the heartbreak written in neon lettering; the shock. Steve's grip on his arm didn't falter, and Steve pressed his eyes closed, sucking in a slow breath as he pulled Tony out of Phil's grip and into a crushing hug. Phil was already pulling out his phone, his hope that it was a mis-reporting just as strong as theirs, but as he called Natasha and listened, there was no change to the grim set of his features, and Steve knew. 

"Peggy Carter has died of old age."


	16. Hold On by Sarah McLachlan (Live)

Getting ready to go back to the States was a blur; Tony's head becoming a darker trap than it'd ever been before with the knowledge that Extremis's new formula might have been able to save her. 

Tony hadn't tried it, but the nanobots were formulated to reinforce cell walls to stop ageing, and could potentially reverse it; Extremis was the answer to Peggy's problems with dementia; Extremis could have brought her back. And Tony had been having that thought in the back of his mind, refusing to consider it, because Tony shouldn't have been saved by it; it was too new, too untested, and while he was willing to see how it'd play out on him, he'd refused to entertain the idea of testing it on anyone else. He'd been selfish-- 

"Tony?" Steve murmured in the seat next to him, his hand sliding over Tony's arm to wrap their fingers together. "Will you distract me, please?" 

Tony blinked, looking over at Steve and holding his hand tighter, "I...don't think I can." Steve's expression shifted to worry from grief, and Tony forced the words out, "I could have saved her, Steve." 

"With Extremis." Steve breathed, then shook his head, "I think she of all people would be worried about being the second trial run of something that makes you superhuman." 

Tony choked, shaking his head as Steve reached up, bringing their foreheads together. "Why? You turned out perfect." 

Steve pressed a kiss to Tony's hair, "Peggy's the smartest woman I've ever known. I think she's...she was well aware that she'd outlive everyone she loves but us." 

Tony sighed, pressing his eyes closed, "Last time I lost someone I loved, I got very drunk." 

"What do you need?" Steve asked. 

"To know how to do this?" Tony scoffed, shaking his head as he started to tear up again, "For it to be a coma dream." 

Phil sighed as he brought out a soda for each of them, taking a seat across from theirs, "No one knows the right way to grieve, Tony. No one ever has, and no one ever will." 

Steve's hand shook as he took a drink of the soda, the hand holding Tony's clutching for a moment before he forced himself to relax. "The first time I met Peggy, she punched a GI twice her size out for disrespecting her." Steve murmured, "She was a force of nature." 

Phil smiled to himself, "The first time I met her, I was a junior agent for the CIA. She'd been officially retired for five years, but there she was, taking down an executive whose safety deposit box had just been robbed of the weapons within it with little more than a look. I didn't stop until I figured out what SHIELD was and forced them to recruit me." 

"I was nearly three when I met Peggy. She wasn't yet the director of SHIELD, and she'd been closest when the house's alarms went up...someone was trying to kidnap me. They shot Edwin, locked Ana in a cupboard...nearly managed to get me out of the house, but Peggy came crashing through the front gate, completely totalled her car." Tony smiled slightly. "She was something to see in a fight. Taught me how to pick locks while Ana and Edwin were getting patched up." 

Steve laughed, "That sounds like Peggy. The men and I used to joke that if they'd really wanted the war over with, they woulda given her the serum instead of me." 

Tony snorted, "Jesus, that is a terrifying thought. Peggy Carter was unstoppable enough without any power-ups." 

They drank their soda, the silence less like the hollow ring of shellshock this time. "Is it true that you and she ended up in a drinking game after...?"

Tony snorted, "I'd've questioned how she managed to be that tiny and drink that much when she usually never drank, but I met the Commandos--I know exactly how she came to have that alcohol tolerance." Steve laughed at that, shaking his head. "Monty taught me six drinking songs by the time I was ten before Ana caught him, then Dugan took over." 

A blush was slowly creeping over Steve's face, and Tony looked at him oddly, "Were they...normal drinking songs, or--" 

"Oh, they taught me the drinking songs they came up with as the Howling Commandos, too. I know several verses that you do not want me to know." 

Phil looked somewhat intrigued, "So getting you drunk enough to sing the songs of your childhood..." 

"Would consist of several rousing choruses describing Cap's ass in spangles and the pin-ups being the only people capable of pinning him down." Tony's grin was as sharp as Natasha's knives, and Steve audibly swallowed. "Which, speaking of, I never thought of myself as a pin-up..." 

"Please god no." Steve groaned, dropping his face into his hands. "Stop." 

"Okay, fine, but you will have to live with the image of me at age six belting out The Captain's Commandos and Jim helping me come up with three more verses." 

"Part of me desperately wants to know more, but the more sensible part of me is mortified." Phil muttered with aplomb, shaking his head. 

Tony couldn't help the laughter, and Steve joined in, still blushing like mad. Phil's mouth twitched, which was about as close to hysterics as Phil Coulson was physically capable of getting, and Tony took a deep breath, trying to calm the mix of laughter and pain in his chest, "I feel like Aunt Pegs would've wanted an Irish wake." 

"Can't get drunk, recovering alcoholic, and the man who's had to deal with Clint Barton's benders." Steve listed off, shrugging, "The most Irish we're getting here is my great-great-grandparents." 

Tony hissed and winced at the last, shooting a sympathetic look at Phil, "That does sound awful." 

"He's a happy drunk." The fluid shrug was belied by the glint of humour in Phil's eye, and Tony chuckled. 

"He's a handsy drunk." Tony refuted. "Then again, I guess that can be the same thing when it comes to him." 

"He's only handsy when he's trying to pick pockets and is having trouble remembering subtlety." 

"Clint, subtle?!" Steve's affected shock was enough to get Phil to crack a smile, if only a small one. 

"The same accusation could be volleyed against you both." 

Tony folded his hands over his heart, widening his eyes and fighting his grin for all he was worth, "Why, Phil! I am the very embodiment of low-profile!" 

Steve made a choking sound, and Phil shook his head, looking as if he was disappointed that his life had turned out like that. "How did I get here?" 

"You and Steve stole my private jet?" 

"Pepper's exact words were 'do whatever the fuck you have to, just drag his sorry ass back here'." Steve informed him, "She also suggested several ways to drag you back to New York." 

"I don't want to know what Pepper suggested." Tony immediately knew that much. 

Steve agreed whole-heartedly, sighing as he grabbed their glasses back up and stood, "I wish _I_ hadn't heard what Pepper suggested. She's..." 

"Bloodthirsty? Vicious? Nearly rabid in her sadistic tendencies?" Tony offered. 

"I'm glad I'm recording this conversation. She's going to love this." Phil commented lightly, not even flinching when Tony flicked a wasabi-coated nut into thwacking the middle of his forehead. “Nice shot.” 

Steve set out refills and sandwiches, shooting a pointed look at Tony until Tony gave in and grabbed one of them. He hadn’t managed to eat after the news of Peggy’s death, and Steve had loudly disapproved. When Steve sat back down, he sat closer to Tony, threading his arm over Tony's shoulders as he did, and Tony leaned into the embrace. "Peggy's funeral," Steve's voice was rough on those words, and Tony took his hand again, taking a slow, deep breath, "is going to be full of big-wigs and people she'd never have given the time of day if she'd had the choice." Phil nodded once, "Then let's celebrate her, just the Avengers and those that are left." 

"Rose'll want in on this action." Tony murmured with a smile, and immediately pulled up the information for Peggy's gal Friday, sending her an email in case she was already on a plane from LA to New York. Phil shot him a look and he bobbed a nod, "Sent an email. She's usually pretty good about checking, and I'm not checking whether she's on a plane already or not, you should be proud of me for not doing this."

Phil's mouth turned down, considering for a moment before nodding slowly, "Yeah, okay, I will admit that not hacking into a government system to check if an 95-year-old woman is on a plane is a big step for you." 

"I, for one, am very proud." Steve murmured, laughing through the mockingly indulgent tone. He nudged Tony gently, releasing his hand as he pressed a kiss to his temple, "Eat." 

The idle wonder if Peggy had been proud of him was quickly quashed as his brain pulled up the memory of Peggy in her hospital bed, as gorgeous and fiery as ever, telling him unequivocally that she was damned proud, and had absolutely no compunctions in the assurance that Edwin and Ana would've been damned proud, too. It was difficult, the memory sharpened just like all his others, so that he could see the delicateness of her skin as she'd reached for his arm, her eyes blazing. She'd been so strong, even then; her grip firm and her features set in the same way they got when Howard was talking and she wasn't about to have any of it. It was a look she wore a lot when Howard was talking, particularly when he was talking about Tony. Steve had a similar expression, most often used when Fox News went after Hulk or Tony said something about himself that Steve was less than pleased to hear. Tony had mostly stopped saying the things that brought about that look; he only really slipped up anymore during a fight or when he'd had a particularly bad bout of insomnia. 

Steve's hand slid over the back of Tony's neck, a warm weight that eased a tension he hadn't realized he was carrying, but now that he was aware of that tension, Tony froze like a startled rabbit before it could bolt--as if that would in any way deter the migraine he knew would be coming. "Tony?" 

Steve had never seen him have one--mainly because he'd been both careful and lucky, and hadn't had one in a long time. Tony didn't know how to warn Steve that he could feel it building like the electricity in the air just before a thunderstorm, and he wasn't sure he could claim it was nothing because Extremis was built to use nanotechnology to act as glue for a broken bone or neutrophil for a sucking chest wound, and Tony hadn't read about migraines in a while, but he was pretty sure neither would help him with this one. 

Phil's gaze flicked over him, and he tilted his head slightly, concerned, "You're having neck stiffness...let me guess, you're also more thirsty than normal and you've been having strange cravings?" 

"No auras yet." Tony replied by way of confirmation, and Phil looked grim. 

"What?" Steve asked, looking back and forth between them. 

"Tony is building into a migraine." Phil replied evenly, and Steve had a face that spoke of concern without fully knowing why he ought to be concerned, "First one in a while, I take it?" 

"Years." Tony admitted, "But if they're the price for Extremis...I might want you guys to hop in a time machine and just let me die." 

"How bad were they historically?" 

"The worst one I had, I woke up in a puddle of my own vomit having passed out from the pain and gotten sick while I was out." Tony murmured darkly. 

"How long?" 

"Two days." Phil winced at that, and though Steve didn't know exactly what all came with migraines and what he was getting himself into, he knew enough that Tony could practically feel him getting protective. "I thought I'd grown out of them." 

"You've had a lot going on." Phil's sardonic reply startled a laugh out of Tony, but Steve was having none of it if the stormy expression was anything to go by. 

"What do you need?" 

Tony covered Steve's hand with his, squeezing softly, "Not much to be done, Steve. I'll get a headache in the next day or two that'll be bad enough to make me see spots, and I'm going to need it to be dark and quiet until it goes away." 

Steve's brow crumpled, and Tony wished fervently that this was not another thing to add to the ever-growing list of ways in which Steve had to take care of Tony. 

"You've had these headaches for...?" 

"Well, they were worst when I was ten, by the time I got to MIT they'd mostly fallen by the wayside, so I--" 

"Why didn't you tell me?" 

Tony shrugged, "I thought it wasn't an issue anymore. It's not like I'm not familiar enough with the symptoms to miss when one's building, obviously, so it wouldn't be a problem in the field if they'd come back when we're in the middle of something." 

"You were so very close to being so very lucky." Phil sighed, "My sister grew up with them, too, and she's been praying she'd outgrow them for the last twenty years." 

Steve scowled, "I take it some people are more prone to it than others?" 

"For true migraines, yes." Tony replied, "When I was little, Ana used to tell me the aura was me looking into another world, and that could take it out of anyone, so I had better lie down and rest." 

Phil smiled, the warmth of it uncharacteristic, but the Avengers knew well that Phil loved his family, "I like that one." 

"I did, too. Of course, Thor existing makes the other worlds thing a little unbelievable now, but I'm adaptable." 

"There's no way to treat it?" Steve clarified, and Phil shook his head. 

"Not really. Pain killers can help for some people, but not all, and historically they were hit and miss for me. Bruce'll have something for me to try, I'm sure." 

"Will...Will you need to be alone?" Steve asked, as if scared that the answer would be yes, and he'd be banished again. 

"We're not going to be able to watch any good movies, and most of the time hopefully I will be unconscious, but the easiest ones I ever had were the ones Ana stayed with me." Steve nodded, and Tony caught his eye, gaze dead steady, "You're probably going to see me in a lot of pain, Steve, but there's nothing anyone's going to be able to do to really help me if the drugs don't work. Are you sure that is something you want to subject yourself to?" 

Steve's features melted, and Phil shook his head at them as Steve pressed a kiss to Tony's forehead, "I don't care how much this is going to kill me to see you in pain; I want to be there with you, be there for you, in any way I can." 

“Good man.” Phil murmured, taking a sandwich for himself, “Are you gonna make it through the funeral?” 

“I will, I have to.” Tony shook that thought off, popping a piece of sandwich in his mouth almost resentfully. 

"We'll get him through it." Steve assured softly, thumb brushing softly back and forth over the pulse in Tony's wrist, "How are you doing, Phil?" 

"As much as I appreciate the life-saving, I would like to request Tony refrain from tackling me again. I've been tackled by Volstagg, and that was less painful than getting tackled by Tony." 

Tony looked intrigued by that, "You got tackled by a demi-god, and I'm the one you're worried about?" 

"I don't know how or why, but you hit harder." 

"Volstagg must've been holding back." Tony laughed. He tacitly ignored the look of doubt that flashed between Phil and Steve, because _of course_ Volstagg was holding back; Tony Stark was many things, but truly superhuman wasn't one of them. 

As the plane landed in New York, Steve found himself clinging to Tony's hand, unwilling to let go even long enough to disembark the plane, and Tony managed to encourage not only Phil, but the pilot and co-pilot off the plane ahead of them, turning into Steve and then pressing them together, his hand still clutched in Steve's even as his other arm came up to wrap around Steve's back, his head laid against Steve's shoulder, the hug not quite as tight as either of them wanted, but close, "I love you." Steve whispered, voice rough, "This is going to be hard, I know. But if you slip? If you feel like you need...Jesus, if you feel like you need _anything_ , then tell me. You loved her even more than I did." 

"I'm not going to slip." Tony hoped he didn't sound the way he'd thought he sounded, but Steve's lips pressed to his hair, a huff coming out as he laid his cheek against the strands he'd just kissed. 

"No, you wouldn't." Steve agreed throatily, "But if you felt like you needed to..?" 

"Oh, if I feel the need to slip, Steve, I will bitch about it incessantly." Tony tugged lightly at his hand, not breaking the hug for love nor money, "I don't know how I managed to get lucky enough to have you chase me down, Rogers. I honestly don't. I won't run from you after you've done so much to bring me back." 

Steve huffed again, "I just..." 

"You just came after me. You're the only one who ever would, after all you've had to put up with." 

Steve's hand was gentle as he tipped Tony's face up, his thumb tracing over Tony's lip before he ducked his head to press a kiss to Tony's lips, "Yes, because I'm the one putting up with so much."

"You were doing so well on knowing when sarcasm ought to be used." Tony scolded softly. 

"I still am, Tony. You put up with a lot more than I do--" 

Steve cut himself off as Tony started shaking his head, "You have to _take care of me_ , Steve. I know you do. I'd be dead if you didn't, probably. You put up with--" 

"You gave," Steve cut him off this time, releasing Tony's hand to wrap both his arms around Tony so that he could hold him fast, "five superheroes and their sundry people a home, Tony. A home you built for us. And we're annoying and we get in the way, and I know that you weren't comfortable with us there. Not at first, at least, though I think that's changing now. You opened up your space to us, and for the first two months, you wore that public persona that I hate to see you forced to pull on even when you were home, because we were there with you. I take care of you because you take care of us--all of us. You and Pep faced down a hostile takeover without even letting us know because you didn't want us to worry, and you shouldn't have to hide these things when you're at home; you should be able to let off that steam, but you don't--" 

"I didn't tell you about something huge, I know you're angry--"

"I'm not angry." Steve's voice was as soft as his touch, and Tony desperately wanted to believe him when he sounded like that. "I wasn't when I found out, either. I just wish I could take the pressure off your back, Tony. All I want is to be there for you, to be able to fight at your side, to have your back. I take care of you because I _need_ to. You put up with me interrupting your life...put up with all of it...I just want to give something back to you, even if it makes me a pain in your ass." 

Tony snorted, his hands bunching in Steve's shirt, "I happen to like it when you're a pain in my ass, Steve." 

The joke was played so straightly that Steve couldn't help his disbelieving snort, and he shook his head, squeezing gently. "Are you ready to face the outside?" Tony hoped to god that there were no paparazzi out there, because he was not really ready to face the outside. He wanted to be able to curl into Steve without risking headlines. 

"Let's go."


	17. I Found by Amber Run

Steve had been called away to zip Natasha into her black dress, leaving Pepper was trying to wrangle Tony into his suit, because if Steve and Tony were left to their own devices they may have just crawled under the covers until the world ended. 

Tony knew that the pain riding Steve's shoulders was something that could steal his breath, because that was about how Tony felt. He'd tried, when they'd gotten home the night before (thankfully avoiding all paparazzi), to get either of them able to sleep, but between the loss of Peggy, and the looming threat of Obediah's final warning, they'd both ended up on the couch in their rec room; Natasha and Pepper slipping in after nine in the evening, then Clint and Coulson at eleven, the three couples sitting there in relative silence; Natasha sitting behind Tony on the back of the couch and showing Steve how to give him a scalp massage that could help with the still-threatening pain of the migraine; Pepper and Coulson engaged in a game of chess that felt like the victory would indicate the ultimate ruler of the world; and Clint relegated to making tea and food, though it was stress-baking more than it was actual provisions. Coulson was mourning his mentor; Pepper was mourning her friend, and their significant others were good people and would not let them face the night alone. 

Now, stumbling into their bedroom from the shower that Tony had been coerced into, Tony found Steve staring down at his formal uniform, and the delicate curve of his spine was screaming for something to drag him out of the thoughts trying to beat him down. 

Words pressed at his throat, at his lips, but Tony didn't know what to say to the look in Steve's eyes, because he wasn't sure what the fuck he'd want to hear if someone were going to jump on the grenade that was trying to comfort him now. Keeping his silence, Tony strode to Steve's closet, the harsh ring of the hanger hooks over the metal rod breaking through the oppressive silence as he routed through the suits, thinking desperately of Peggy and what she would have wanted of her goodbyes. Steve was lured to his back with that, close enough that Tony could feel the warmth of him at his side without feeling a touch of skin, "I wore that...when I lost Bucky." Steve's voice sounded mis-used, and Tony knew this story, in the abstract. Steve, trying to get drunk just to escape the pain; the hopelessness of it; and Peggy Carter, asking him to keep fighting despite the loss, because that's what Bucky would have wanted. Because she was a force of nature, and they'd both been swept into her undertow. 

"She despised black at funerals, even if she was a traditionalist." The first funeral he'd gone to had been for Monty Falsworth, and she'd worn blue--the Commandos had all worn blue. They'd been the Blue Army to fight the red, and they didn't wear Cap's shade, but they would always wear his colour. 

Pepper had gotten Steve a selection of suits when he'd moved into the Tower, before Tony had even considered that they could be anything more than strained acquaintances, and his hand fell on one that was so navy as to be mistaken for black, the material soft under his calloused hands without catching. Tony pulled it out, handing it to Steve with the weight of a man who had been politely invited to his own firing squad. 

"This one." Steve's brow furrowed as he took the fabric from Tony's shaking hands, and Tony bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from crying, because while he'd known all parents were lost to their children at one point or another, Peggy had always been his exception; Peggy had always been there to kick his ass into gear. "The silver tie and pocket square." Choking the words out, Tony shouldn't have been surprised when Steve tossed the clothes aside, yanking him into his arms. Tony felt like he was crumbling, and Steve and he were collapsing together, curled around each other on the carpet, Tony in water droplets and a towel, and Steve in his underwear. 

A hand wove into Tony's curls as the other rested against the back of his neck, and Tony buried his face in Steve's throat, "It's going to be okay." 

"You l-loved her..." Tony choked, feeling like he had no right to be taking the comfort he found in Steve's embrace. 

"I did," Steve agreed, voice strained tight with the devastation of fresh grief, "but I lost the Peggy I loved a long time ago, Tony. I know she wasn't the same woman that I loved back then. I learned to love her as a friend, so I lost a friend. You lost family." 

"I _hate_ this. I should be comforting you right now." 

Steve breathed out a quieting noise, pressing his lips to Tony's hair, his temple. "You've been comforting me for years, Tony. I've been mourning since we met." 

"How do you do this?" Tony demanded, the pain in the words sending an answering shiver through Steve as he held Tony tighter. 

"I have you," Steve's voice had changed, as if reciting something, "I have Pepper, and Natasha, and Coulson, and Thor, and Clint, and Bruce, and Darcy--I have Sam, and Jane, and Dummy, and, somewhere out there, I have Bucky. I started with nothing here; no one. I love you all because you're my family...I love you most because you made me remember that family is what you make it, not what is given to you...or what's taken away." 

Tony's hand skimmed over the lines and curves of muscle lining Steve's back, trying to internalize that this man, who was strong enough to be the immovable object to his unstoppable force, was strong enough to bear his pain and Tony's if he had to. "I love you." 

"I love you, too." Steve's watery laugh rolled over him as if it were water, and Tony dragged in a breath that smelled of Steve, pressing his eyes tightly shut before he forced himself to breathe out and to face the world without Peggy Carter in it. Steve's hand ran through his hair as Tony pulled back, his thumb brushing over the tear stains on his cheek before Steve pressed a soft, coaxing kiss to Tony's mouth, beckoning him back to the world--beckoning him back to life. 

They got up on shaky legs, leaning together as Steve pressed desperate kisses against his skin, the pain welling up within him written clearly on his face. They'd managed to pull on their suits before they ended up sitting beside each other on the end of the bed as if they'd both lost the thread of what came next--rather than sitting beside each other on the end of the bed as though praying that what came next would never have to come. 

The funeral itself was boring, and the soldier's goodbye that she ought to have gotten wasn't an option because she hadn't technically been a soldier, and Tony had already spent several minutes of the ride there trying to track down any of the asshats that Peggy never mentioned, but the Commandos had considered terrorizing more than once. She may not have been one of the men, but they had her back and she had theirs, and that was all that had ever mattered to any of the parties involved. 

During the eulogies, when Tony was girding himself to get up and talk about the woman who'd saved his life over and over, a woman got up to the podium, standing over Peggy's coffin with empty blue eyes that had Tony's hindbrain throwing up red flags. Next to Pepper, Natasha gasped, and the woman began smiling, unhinged as she regarded only the gathering of superheroes in the first two rows, "Hello, Anthony--" 

Her smooth voice was cut off by a sniper's bullet creating a neat hole in her chest, and while the other mourners panicked, and the other Avengers began to get them out in as orderly a fashion as possible, Natasha and Tony moved to the woman, the both of them kneeling on either side of the pretty brunette. "Why do I know her voice from my childhood?" Tony demanded, knowing that she was already gone for all intents and purposes, but trying to staunch the flow of blood anyway. 

"Her name is Dorethalina. She was from the _original_ Black Widow programme." Natasha replied. 

Tony paused, his mind supplying the story of Dottie, the one woman that ever got the better of Peggy Carter. "She's..." 

"Still young and beautiful? Yeah, sounds like someone else we know." Natasha replied, tracing the line of sight with her eyes, "I'll bet you that this was his doing." 

"I'm surprised he wasn't in the audience of mourners." Tony replied, and winced internally as Steve circled back around to them. 

"Clint?" Natasha asked Steve, her hair falling into her face as she searched the body, knowing without actual confirmation that Clint was not among the Avengers helping people from the church. 

"Went to find the sniper." Steve replied, "But I'm guessing she was the only target." 

"She was a psychopants bitch, so tell Clint not to hurt whoever it is." Tony caught the twitching at the corner of Natasha's mouth as she raised her hand to her ever-present comm link and did just that. In the next breath, she paled, her features going slack with shock as she reached down into her dress and produced her phone from a pocket Tony never would have been able to see in a million years, calling Clint's number for a video call. 

Tony had a terrible angle, but he saw Clint answer, then the phone was flipped to show the sniper's nest and the two people occupying it, _"Looks like we've found our one-armed bandit...and Steve's best gal."_


	18. You Should Know Where I'm Coming From by Banks

Peggy Carter was sitting in a reading alcove, sipping tea as if it were perfectly normal to be doing so with a Dragunov sniper rifle fully set up next to her and its attendant assassin tucking another blanket around her shoulders with all the care in the world. 

"Thirty years ago," Peggy began, casting a glance at Tony, "I made a deal with the she-devil. She would not come after my family or I, and in exchange, I would stop the hunt for her." Pausing as Tony choked of a scoff, Peggy's eyes surveyed the assembled Avengers gathered in the very apartment that Howard had given her and Angie decades ago. "She'd been quiet for years, but she came back...came after Tony. I was no longer at the top of my game, and I had no intention of letting her get to my godson; she took the deal, with the understanding that, at some point, she was going to find some way around it. When James arrived with stories of AIM getting their hands on HYDRA technology and Obediah Stane being rumoured to have lived, I knew she'd found a way...and then I'd learned why, when I was getting too tired for the chase, she was just as sprightly as ever."

"She was with the KGB division of HYRDA." Bucky spoke up, "Getting cryogenically frozen when she wasn't required, but keeping her toe in the water, as it were." 

"I'm sorry for the ruse of my death, but I knew the only way she'd show herself before she'd brought everything down around our ears would be if I'd died. I think by the end of it, it was a thirst for challenge more than it was a true want to win...the best way to bait her out was to take away her favourite challenge. So I had James help me fake my death," 

Clint raised his hand like he was in class, "Question." Peggy nodded, the glint of amusement heart-rending in her dark eyes, "How are you out of the hospital and not dead?" 

"Oh! The tea! James is not the only odd visitor I've had. There was a Doctor Stephen Strange that came calling. He gave me this tea. No one's been able to find anything besides green tea leaves and jasmine, but it's made me damned clearer." 

Phil twitched, and Bucky shifted minutely, as if placing himself in defence of her. "We've had it tested by three different labs." Bucky murmured, and Phil nodded once, "Peggy mentioned that Dr. Bruce Banner would be the best man for the job, but without tipping our hand, we weren't able to get quite that high-ranking." 

Bruce shifted uncomfortably, but nodded a silent thanks to Peggy at the praise. "Have there been any side-effects?" Tony asked before Bruce could, and he had to stop himself from going to Peggy to check her over. 

"None." Peggy reported, her gaze steady on Tony, her weathered hand unwrapping from the cup to rest on her lap. 

Phil looked at the assorted superheroes, and made a decision that Fury would likely not ultimately have liked, "Let's go. Nat, Clint; you two stay nearby. Bruce, if you'd be so kind as to run those tests, just to be safe? Thor, I'd like you to see if you can find anything magical concealed within the tea as well." Wrangling the lot of them was no small feat on the best of days; getting Tony and Steve time alone with Peggy and Bucky was another kettle of fish. 

Once the door had closed behind the insanity, Tony twitched, reaching up to take his silk scarf off, sliding out of his coat and running a hand through his hair hard enough to very nearly tear his hair out. "Phil was less than subtle on that one." Peggy noted, though her gaze didn't leave Tony. "Tony Stark, get over here." 

Tony's mouth quirked wryly, the smile not quite reaching his eyes, "See, if I listen to your orders and not Steve's, he's gonna think he's not my favourite." 

"Knowing Steve, he has no problem with that." Bucky replied for her, and Peggy laughed. 

"You remember me?" Steve asked, 

"It...took a while, but I remember." Bucky replied sombrely, "You're Steven Grant Rogers, your mother was Sarah Rogers. You were an artist, and you should _not_ have been allowed in the army. Taking stupid risks..." 

A flush spread into Steve's ears, and Tony was so close to some form of hysterics that it was killing him to know that he had to refrain. "He still takes stupid risks." Tony sighed, fighting back a grin at the betrayed look Steve flashed his way. 

"He drove his motorcycle over a canyon." 

"He got eaten by a dragon in order to blow it up from the inside." 

Steve was visibly wincing as Bucky blinked once, his full attention on Tony now, "Tell me more." 

"Oh no. Hell no. You two do not get to team up on me here." Steve groaned, "Peggy, help." 

"My personal favourite was the time he decided to defuse a missile while it was en route, over the Atlantic." Peggy offered, and put on a look of innocent surprise when Steve groaned. Tony found himself grinning, and was startled at that expression taking over his own features; startled at the relief exploding in his chest, "Oh, get over here, Tony." Peggy ordered, opening her arms to him, "I died three days ago, I demand a hug." 

Tony stuck his tongue out at her, and she cocked a brow, pursing her lips, gratified by the flash of panic that Tony put on before he hurried into her offered hug. Bucky seemed wary, but when Peggy rubbed over Tony's back, turning to whisper in his ear, he turned his attention to Steve. 

The silence stretched for long moments before the words began to struggle their way out, "I'm not ready to..." 

"To be a real boy?" Tony offered, sitting back and taking Peggy's hand when she reached for his, a look of pride flashing in her eyes as she looked from their joined hands up to Steve and back to Tony. 

Bucky didn't respond, which Steve was thankful for, "You don't have to come back--" 

"Eh, you do have to give a statement for SHIELD about the hit, but other than that, you don't have to come back." Tony capitulated, "And, actually, if Steve pulls the Steve Rogers card on anyone but Coulson, you might be able to get away with giving that statement to Steve." 

Peggy shook her head, "We've talked about this, James. Tony can help with the issues you've been having with the arm, and you and Steve owe it to each other to reconnect." Peggy admonished gently. 

"I do actually have an arm that can replace that one already made and waiting in the Tower." 

"With a tracker in it." Bucky's accusation was in a voice dragged over coals. 

"No." Steve told him, calm and level, "Tony deactivated the tracking device in that one, as well as the bomb HYDRA had planted alongside it." 

"So long as no one tries to back-door into the tech, I won't even be able to get into it once it’s attached.” 

“Back-door?” Peggy asked, her mouth pulling down. 

“Steve and I ran into some Hammer’d tech of mine...attached to Obediah Stane.” 

“More or less comprising Obediah Stane.” Steve corrected, his voice hiding an edge of steel within it. 

Peggy looked nearly deflated, looking from Steve to Tony and taking a deep breath, “I should have done more to prove he’d—“ 

“You did everything you could short of black-bagging him and torturing a confession out of him, Aunt P. I’ve read the case file.” Tony interrupted, “You brought me Pep. You made me safe in every way you could at the time.” 

Bucky flinched slightly, and Tony’s attention finally forced him to face Barnes down, “I...I don’t remember much about the time I was being used. But I know that it was me that—“ with an audible click of his throat, Bucky’s choked words became too much for him to force out. 

“Aunt Pegs trusts you, so I’m willing to operate under the wary assumption that you’re not the same man that who killed them. I trust her call.” 

“I would’ve thought Steve the more ringing endorsement of the two of us,” Peggy noted. 

Tony snorted, shaking his head as if the implication was insane, “He’s a terrible judge of character: he’s gone and picked me, hasn’t he?” 

Bucky actually snorted a laugh as both Peggy and Steve picked up decorative pillows and whacked at Tony. Laughing, Tony held up his hands in surrender. “Insufferable!” Peggy harrumphed, and Tony grinned evilly. 

“Speaking of...” Steve started, sitting forward on the uncomfortably decorative couch with a gleam in his baby blues, “we’re engaged.” 

Peggy lit up, a grin splitting her features as she pulled Tony back into a hug, reaching for Steve as well, “That is so wonderful to hear!”

Bucky offered Steve a smile, reaching to shake his hand. "Marrying a Stark?" 

"Not just any Stark. The best one." Steve replied, "And besides, I like the way Steven Stark sounds." 

Tony sincerely hoped that he didn't blush hard enough at that for Peggy to _feel_ the rush of heat to his face. "Tony Rogers doesn't quite have the right ring." Peggy agreed happily. 

"Congratulations. He's a punk, and he'll probably drive you into greying from the sheer stress of watching out for his idiot ass, but he's worth it." Bucky addressed Tony once he'd finally been released from the hug and Peggy had pulled Steve in for one, murmuring low in his ear. 

Steve could see the exchange over Peggy's shoulder, his blue eyes taking in absolutely everything as Bucky offered Tony his hand, and Tony hesitated only for a moment before taking it and smiling in a way that reached his eyes, sending a visible wave of relief through Steve. "He's already started working on the greying, but if you want to come back and help me watch out for his idiot ass, I'll take all the help I can get." 

Bucky smiled just slightly, the handshake stopped but the grasp still there, "I'm sorry...for the role I played." 

Tony nodded slowly, "I can't promise I can completely forgive what happened, but I understand what it's like to find yourself being used a weapon, even if I experienced it only tangentially. But I do have to thank you for making sure that that punk over there survived long enough to make it to me." 

Bucky shrugged a shoulder, and they released each other at last, Bucky looking just slightly less drawn around the eyes. "You know, Steve, I think you have a thing for brown-eyed brunettes. You coulda told me, I wouldn't've set you up with so many blondes." 

Steve flipped his oldest friend off, and Bucky shook his head. "I'm good with him not having been set up with a brown-eyed brunette back in the day and being too preoccupied to be a science experiment." Tony piped up. 

"I think it also has something to do with being able to kill people in surprising ways with things laying about the house, dear." Peggy consoled, "There were a few, but not many, who could do what we do."

Tony worked very hard not to preen at Peggy's assertion that he could do anything close to what she did, and Steve smiled at him, eyes fond, "It took getting lost in the Arctic for sixty years, but I ended up with the right brunette." 

"How did _that_ happen, by the way? I never got around to asking Peg." Bucky moved as if to cross his arms over his chest, but there was an audible popping sound from the metal arm, and Tony winced as if it'd hurt him. 

"Okay, no, you need your new arm. I know that sound, that is the sound of electricity in loose wiring, and please tell me that you haven't been putting up with being electrocuted." Tony rambled. 

"It's not that b--" 

"He has, and if this tea healed me physically as well as it did mentally, you would have found me broken in to your workshop." Peggy sighed, shaking her head with the same disapproving set to her features that she'd reportedly had through the war. 

Both Bucky and Steve saw that look and appeared to be squirming slightly, which Tony filed away for later. "Well, let's get to the workshop and get that sorted. Aunt P, I have to talk to you about something...that could potentially heal your body and your mind permanently, but I'd rather not do it with a portrait of my father on the mantlepiece." 

Peggy's eyes were lit with curiosity and amusement as both Steve and Bucky turned to look at the mantlepiece and yelled in simultaneous disgust because it was a nude. "Angie and I tried to pry that from the wall with a pair of crowbars. It wouldn't budge." 

"Of course not. It's the entrance to the secret exit." Tony replied easily, hauling himself to his feet and bending to press a kiss to Peggy's cheek, "You might've just painted over it, though." 

"I wanted to, Angie decided it was better left to drive out unwanted callers." Peggy was smiling only a little sadly at the memory as Tony glanced around the room and went to where Bucky had stashed her wheelchair just before Bucky was about to tell him. 

"Did you ever use it?" Tony asked. 

"I have an inkling that it may even have helped today." Shaking his head at her antics as he wheeled the chair over to her and helped her into it, Tony refrained from looking over at the portrait, "James, could you grab my pills, please?" 

"Of course, Pegs." Bucky replied, and Steve stood to linger beside Tony, wrapping one arm low around his back. 

"Very nice suit, Steve." Peggy complimented, and tipped her head back to regard Tony, "You remembered." 

Tony flashed a smile, "You basically kidnapped me when Howard stuck me in black that first funeral, Aunt Pegs. Blue is your preferred mourning dresscode." 

Steve looked over at Tony, brow crumpled, and Peggy patted his hand on her shoulder absently. "The Commandos and I never wore black, and since Tony was an honorary Commando from the first time he saved my skin at age two, I wasn't about to let Howard stick him in black, either." 

Tony smiled softly at the look on Steve's face with that assertion, taking the wheelchair handles and guiding them through the apartment. They collected Bucky halfway through the apartment, and Natasha was guarding the door out, but Clint was nowhere to be seen, and wouldn't be until he sauntered into the Tower once they were safely there.

Peggy eyed Natasha as they piled into the limo awaiting them, "I take it you were trained by Dottie?" 

Natasha blinked, then ducked her head slightly, "In part." 

"I'm sorry." Peggy murmured, voice level with her earnestness. 

"Don't be." 

Steve took Tony's hand, weaving their fingers together, a look of faux seriousness falling into place. "We really do need to get into that puzzlebox now." He whispered. Tony brushed his fingertips over the bare skin of Steve's ring finger with a small, utterly fond smile, and Steve smiled back, ducking down to press a kiss to his cheek. 

"What puzzlebox?" Natasha asked curiously. 

Steve grinned, "Tony proposed while he was trapped in that car...His ringbox, however, leaves something to be desired." 

Natasha's gaze shifted to Tony, and a brow quirked--all the question he really needed from her. "It's a Rubik's cube." 

"Not what I'm questioning." 

"You know as well as I do that it's not as if I'd be able to do the whole romance song and dance without either a supervillain or Clint crashing the party." 

Natasha shrugged a shoulder at that, "Okay, fair. But, really; while you were dying, you decided it was a good idea to ask him to marry you?" 

"You were _what_?!" Peggy demanded, "Trapped in a car and dying?! Was this that 'incident' with Abomination that you _shrugged off_?" Peggy rounded on Bucky, and Tony felt a flare of gratitude that Bucky had shrugged it off, even for how poor a decision that was. 

"Abomination...threw me into a building, car and all." Tony told her in a rush, as if ripping off a band-aid, and he was wincing the whole way. 

Peggy looked apoplectic, and Bucky took her hand, "Tony was in the hospital...that's why I didn't check in for a week." Peggy swatted at his non-metal arm, then went to swat at Tony. 

"And why the hell did you not _tell me_?" Peggy demanded, managing to include both Tony and Steve in that particular shrill. 

"We had some...problems after Bruce and JARVIS saved my life." Tony told her, "It's what I need to talk to you about when we get to the Tower." 

"The thing that could heal my body as well as my mind." Peggy diagnosed, her eyes dropping to Tony's chest, "You..." 

"It pushed the shrapnel away from my heart...patched me up." 

Peggy's eyes widened, a look of tenderness on her features that wasn't commonly something she allowed others to see. "Dr. Banner and JARVIS, you say?" 

"Tony came up with the fix: Bruce and JARVIS perfected it." Steve murmured, and Tony could hear a thread of pride in his tone. 

As they all piled out of the limo and rode the elevator to the lab levels, Steve felt Peggy's small, delicate hand fold around his, squeezing gently. She wasn't looking up at him; seemed to be focused on the floors ticking past, but it was a message received; she was happy for him. Tony bundled Bucky and Peggy into the lab, Steve beelining for the nest of sketches he'd been picking up and putting down, unable to finish, while he’d been consumed with trying to open the box; Tony had seen him do exactly that with any problems he’d faced before countless times. Steve caught up the puzzlebox, rejoining Tony as he brought up the specs for Bucky’s replacement arm. 

“Now, with most of the arms I’ve built, I put in a limit on the amount of strength that the arm can expend to match the strength of the other arm, but for your arm, I wasn’t sure that you’d be down for that—“ 

“You can make it so that I’m only as strong as a human body can be strong? How?” 

Tony opened his mouth, then closed it, wincing slightly, “Do you want the in-depth version or the succinct version?” 

Bucky’s bright blue eyes flashed with mirth, “Succint.” 

“There’s a line of programming that we activate during installation, taking into account your real arm’s abilities and mimicking the real arm’s growth or loss of strength. I haven’t been able to completely perfect it so that the replacement arm gets ripped should the real arm get ripped, but I’ve been reliably informed that that’s not a priority.” Bucky looked over Tony’s shoulder to Steve for help, and Steve bit back a chuckle. 

“Compared to Howard, that was succinct.” Steve reminded gently. “The real question is how close to real do you want your replacement to be? Tony has made it so that you’d be able to have full sensations through the arm if you want them, or you can choose to have as straight a trade on this as possible.” 

Bucky narrowed his eyes, “I thought you said the arm was already made.” 

Peggy snorted delicately, rolling her eyes, “This is Howard’s son, James. For goodness sake, he’ll have every option on offer already made and probably one or two prototypes besides.” 

The tension seeping into Tony’s shoulders was subtle, but it was there with every mention of Howard and how like him Tony had turned out. Steve moved forward, sliding so that he could gently divest Tony of his coat and jacket to get them out of range of being sacrificed on the altar of engineering. The charcoal grey wool of the suit was shot through with a grey-blue that matched the waistcoat Tony was now down to, his shirt and tie both a dark enough grey that the blue in the remaining waistcoat and trousers stood out in comparison. Steve had never seen it before, because it was the suit Tony had had made specifically for the deaths of the Commandos, and he refused to wear it otherwise. 

Bucky eyed Tony before turning to Steve, “He has you reduced to being his butler?” 

“James,” Peggy’s voice was low and threatening, her gaze steady, “first of all, the last butler Tony had was the bravest and most loving man I have ever met, and if I learned anything from Mr. Jarvis, it was that love meant taking care of those in your heart; secondly, may I remind you that this is a kindness that you are not owed, considering the fact that you tried to kill Tony and he took a building to the back to save you, despite your histories?” 

Steve had inched closer to Tony during this reprimand, and Tony was half-chagrined at that, because it meant that Steve was close enough to feel it when Tony swayed slightly on his feet. The firm hand wrapping around his elbow told Tony that it had not been taken as a sign of shock that Peggy would quietly brow-beat a man into respecting him, and Tony cursed mentally. 

The black spots in his vision were getting worse, and the building ache in his head was finally coming to a crescendo. Dummy wheeled over quietly, almost shyly, a small bottle clutched in his claw, and Steve put two and two together immediately, leveraging Tony into a seat and taking the pill bottle from Dummy. “Can you bring us a bottle of water, please?” Steve asked quietly of the robot, modulating his voice to try to avoid causing more pain. 

“Tissues, too, Dum. You know the drill.” Tony groaned, trying futilely to blink the black spots out of his vision. 

“What’s happening?” Peggy asked, voice taking on the same careful modulation Steve’s had. 

“Migraine.” Steve replied, shaking pills into his palm and handing them to Tony as Dummy approached again with both tissues and a water bottle. “You’ve seen these before, huh?” Steve asked Dummy, who nodded his claw slowly. Steve heard a sniff from Tony, and Dummy pressed forward more hurriedly, a tissue out of the box and pressed to Tony’s nose in a blink. 

Steve saw the spotting of red leaking through already, and he clenched his fists, wishing there was a way to actually drive the pain away. “Peggy, Buck, we’ll set you both up in one of the guest levels if you two don’t mind sharing a kitchen.” Peggy visibly surpressed her laughter at the look on Bucky’s face. “I’m putting my foot down that the rest can wait—“ 

“He’s being electrocuted,” Tony groaned muffledly, “that’s not going to wait.” 

Steve took Tony’s free hand, squeezing softly as he ducked his head to meet Tony’s eye, reading him like an open book. Steve looked disapproving, but acquiesced, standing and facing Bucky, “What do you want from your arm?” 

Bucky opened and shut his mouth, at a loss for a moment, and Peggy rolled her eyes, wheeling nimbly around Steve so that she was closer to Tony, her weathered hand rubbing at the back of his neck with cool fingers. 

“Close your eyes, my darling.” She whispered, her voice as close to home as he could get any more. “You know, when I first went to California, and got attacked at Howard’s first house there, Howard’s response was to install an alarm system with a recording of Edwin’s voice...He told me that he would hate to be a disembodied voice into perpetuity, but I think he’d like JARVIS. You always did have such a way of making him eat his words in the most creative of fashions.” The gentle ribbing was met with a snort of amusement, and Tony coughed slightly on the blood running down the back of throat that the snort had caused. 

Normally, Tony would have ached for silence, but with Peggy’s fingers trailing softly through his hair, he ached more for the comfort of her voice, or Ana’s, or Edwin’s. “Thank god you’re not dead.” Tony breathed, “You’re the only other one who remembers them.” 

Peggy squeezed gently at the base of his skull, and Tony shuddered as a much larger, much warmer hand rested between hisshoulder blades. “Bucky wants an arm as close to human as you can give him.” Steve murmured softly. “Are you certain I can’t talk you into doing this later?” 

Tony shook his head, opening his eyes and immediately regretting it. Taking a deep breath to stave off the nausea, Tony forced himself to stand, turning slightly to regard Bucky. “Lucky for you, I’ve been working on something to help with healing massive injury. Follow me.” Steve shadowed him closely enough that Tony allowed himself to lean on Steve, if only slightly, as they made their way deeper into the workshop. “HYDRA’s method of attachment left whole worlds to be desired, but it got the job done. In order to disconnect it, we’re going to have to basically laser our way through the arm’s grips, then detach the neural interface using a concentrated EMP burst to disrupt the arm’s ability to integrate with your body. Once that’s done, any remaining damage from the attachment process is going to be healed and a connection interface is going to be installed to your shoulder, the arm itself will then be programmed from the data collected and will be attached to the connection interface.” 

“That makes it sound as if it can be detached.” Bucky noted darkly. 

“Only by me, and only then with permission. There’s a key that’s activated biometrically and requires explict consent before it’ll...before it’ll allow the arm to unlock from the interface. It’s strictly for maintenance.” 

“And if something happens to you?” 

“Steve can be programmed into it.” Tony offered, voice tight as his head throbbed and the room began a slow spin. 

“Tony, maybe this really isn’t the best time—“ Peggy began gently, but Tony shook his head softly and immediately regretted that decision. 

“If you get on the seat there, the system will scan you quickly to see if there’s anything else we need to worry about, then it’ll wrap a membrane around the shoulder joint which will numb and heal while it cuts through.” Tony found himself urged to lean on Peggy’s wheelchair as Steve hunted down a chair. “You’ll be awake and in control the whole time.” 

Bucky looked grudgingly appreciative of that, turning to the small closed-off space that Tony had built and shucking his sweatshirt. Tony felt a chair press to the backs of his knees and collapsed into it gratefully, covering Steve’s hand on his shoulder with his own. They watched in silence as Bucky sat on the chair, and the system came to life around him. A holographic image of the scan appeared before Tony, and he fought back a groan, his vision fuzzy at the edges as he tried to look at the information displayed. In his head, Extremis seemed to purr to the fore, letting him know what the information contained. “Good to go.” Tony choked out, closing his eyes and letting Extremis show him what was happening without his retinal nerves getting in the way. Steve’s thumb rubbed gently back and forth over Tony’s shoulder, and Peggy reached to take the hand not covering Steve’s. “Do you feel anything?” 

“No, just...warmth.” 

“Good. If that changes, let me know.” Tony ordered, watching through Extremis as the arm and the interface were brought out of the vault of his robotics. The old arm was removed by a claw just as lifeless and efficient as Dummy was supposed to be, and Tony could almost hear Dummy’s superiority complex that that arm was attached to the whole apparatus while he could roam free. Steve’s breath caught as the arm was taken away, the new one coming into view. Tony listed to the side until he was leaning his head on Steve’s side, Steve’s hand pushing through his hair in gentle, rhythmic strokes. 

“It...it tingles. Not pain, but..." 

"That's the nerves fusing to the interface. You will be able to feel through the arm, though you're not going to be able to feel pain through it." Tony filled in, "You're almost done." 

Peggy squeezed Tony's hand, sniffing slightly. He could feel her lean into his side, the scent of her perfume wafting over him as she got closer, "I'm so proud of you, Tony. Thank you for this." She pressed a kiss to his cheek, and Tony squeezed her hand back, opening his eyes despite the pain to look over at her, "I adore you, my darling boy, and I am so thankful that I've been honoured to see the man you've grown up to be."


	19. Love Me Now by John Legend

The scream was cut off in his throat, the quiet dark of their bedroom rushing in around him, the long line of Steve's body beside him coming awake only with the opening of those baby blues; no sudden jerks of motion, and no sound to startle him further. 

But those baby blues went huge as Steve's usual scan of the room and inventory of Tony stalled on Tony's right arm, where a repulsor shone from his palm without suit or power link. Tony swallowed, throat clicking as he choked on his panicked breathing, his other hand reaching for the light resting _in_ his palm. His thumb swept over the skin surrounding the light, and Extremis stirred, a golden shimmer of energy tingled over the light, and the sensation of the ring of light disappearing back into his skin was very nearly an itch. Extremis had taken his need to defend himself, and instead of calling the suit, it'd manufactured the suit's first defensive weapon in the palm of his hand. the nanobots that were reinforcing his cells able to make anything with the right power source and the right input. The human body was a breathing battery; and what better 3D-printer than the human mind--his mind--to shape the nanobots from within him? 

"Tony?" Steve asked softly, still perfectly still, though he'd torn his eyes from the palm of Tony's hand to his face, brows pinched in concern. Tony nodded shakily, and Steve took that as permission to touch him, sitting up and taking Tony's hand in both of his, fingertips tickling as they ran over his palm. "Breathe with me?" 

Tentatively, Steve reached up to rest his fingers against Tony's neck, not using anything but the delicate, nearly ephemeral pressure of that touch to urge Tony's eyes to his. Once Tony looked up, it was like being swallowed under an undertow, and Steve's calm, steady breaths were the perfect metronome to calm his own locomotive breathing. Steve wove their fingers together then unwove them easily, brushing his thumb over Tony's knuckles gently before he raised them to his lips, breaking their gaze with a flutter of his ridiculous lashes as he looked down at the hand in his grasp, flipping it over to press his lips to the palm despite Tony's frightened-animal flinch. 

"That's better," Steve sighed softly when he'd kissed down to the pulse in Tony's wrist. He looked up again, and Tony sucked in a slow, deep breath, his eyes closing as Steve moved up and kissed his forehead, "are you still in pain?" 

Tony nodded again, reaching for Steve's embrace and ending up pulling himself into Steve's arms instead of the other way around. Steve chuckled slightly, wrapping him in a warm, secure hug that made Tony want to melt. "It's not so bad." 

Steve hummed softly, fingers tunnelling through the curls in a way that made Tony's shoulders go lax. Tony moaned as Steve urged them both back down against the mattress, still wrapped in Steve's arms. "How can I help you?" He was breathing the words in an attempt to keep the shooting pain out of Tony's head. 

"I just--" 

"You scared me, but it's not like you haven't done that a million times." Steve chuckled, releasing Tony just enough to try to catch his eye, "Hey...I love you." 

"I love you, too." Tony sounded small even to himself, and he kicked himself for it.

"You're not going to be able to talk me out of loving you. Even if you start literally becoming your armour, it's always been a part of you anyway." 

Tony closed his eyes, breathing in the familiar scent of wood smoke and art supplies, his hand tracing over Steve's shoulders as he buried his face in Steve's neck. 

"How can I help you, Tony?" 

"Just this." Tony admitted, and the arm around his waist tightened just a hair in response. 

"It was the Extremis nanotech, right?" 

"I should be able to control it now that I know it's something that this thing does." Tony tried to soothe, but even to him it fell flat. 

Steve's grip on him didn't change, his heartbeat against Tony's chest and is breathing ghosting over Tony's skin still blessedly calm, "How do you feel?" 

"The same..." 

"Good." Steve said, and Tony couldn't help but believe him. 

Steve hushed him gently as Tony took a breath, kissing him softly, licking at his lower lip before he kissed Tony deeper, sucking on his tongue as he shifted Tony against him, one hand pressing firmly to the small of Tony's back. Shivering into Steve, Tony fisted a hand against his spine, resisting the urge to rock his body into Steve's, desire twisted tightly in his gut. His head still ached, but it wasn't as bad as it had been when they'd summarily put themselves to bed at three in the afternoon the day before. Steve rested their foreheads together, a small smile tugging at his full lips as he traced his thumb over the cut of Tony's jaw. Stealing kisses to keep Tony from talking, Steve slid a hand down until he had wrapped his fingers around Tony's knee, pulling as he shifted onto his back so that Tony was draped over his front, comfortably straddling Steve's waist. 

"I should be resisting temptation." Steve groaned. 

"Please don't." 

" _You_ have a headache." 

Tony whined, shaking his head, "Not that bad." 

"Tony..." Steve sighed, fighting back laughter as he eased into another kiss, slow enough that it was almost as if Steve was trying to quell the current running through Tony. 

"Steve?" Tony was genuinely impressed with himself that he remembered how to talk with Steve's mouth trailing chaste kisses over his cheek and down his neck. 

"I want you to be completely better before we do this."

"Then you have to stop kissing me...actually, fuck it, I need a cold shower, ending the kissing is not gonna cut it."

Steve laughed in whispers, petting through Tony's hair and smiling at him with such warmth that Tony felt as though he were melting. "I really like kissing you..." 

"Steve, we're naked and you have me straddling you. If you don't stop kissing me, there will be drastic measures taken." 

Steve's hands slid down to rest on Tony's hips, rubbing idly at the jut of Tony's hipbones. "You know, it's been a while since I got a rundown of what drastic measures would entail." 

"Well gosh, Steve...you're the one pumping the brakes, so why don't you tell me what you'll let me do. Because if it were up to me, I think I'd probably go for blowing you until you sob and fucking between those gorgeous thighs, but--mmgph." Steve's mouth captured his, and Tony couldn't hold back a shudder as Steve's hips rocked once, unconsciously, into his. When that kiss ended, Tony had to take a few seconds to restart his synapses by sucking a string of marks down the line of Steve's throat, but he did get everything firing again, "We're playing a game of chicken with sexual tension, Steven, and we're very close to crashing. So what will you let me do?" 

Steve swallowed thickly, sucking in desperate, slow breaths as if that would help to calm him down at all with Tony's hands tracing over his chest, thumb circling a nipple as he nipped a path over Steve's collarbones. "You're going to be the death of me." Steve accused dazedly, and the flash of Tony's rakish grin against Steve's skin sent Steve groaning, head thunking back. 

"It'll be fun?" Tony offered as if that would make up for dying, and Steve laughed at him, getting his hands around Tony's waist and shoulder and simultaneously pulling and flipping so that he was the one draped--as much as he would allow himself to drape--over Tony. 

"I should find it more concerning than I do, knowing that that's really all you need to come from something that has the potential to kill you." 

"Hey, I'll have you know that there are several things that could have been fun that I avoided." 

"I'm so proud." Steve teased, and Tony nudged him in the side with his knee, pulling him in for another kiss that felt more like a conversation. "Okay, my counter-offer: we make out until our mouths are numb, then rub off on each other." 

"Like teenagers?" 

"Like teenagers." 

"I know we can do better than that." Tony mused. 

"You need to rest." Steve laughed, then grew serious, studying Tony's features from so close that Tony had to wonder if he could focus, "I need you to rest. To feel better." 

"I'm doing great, Steve." Tony coaxed, smiling softly, "Thank you for laying down with me yesterday." Pinching a lock of Steve's golden hair between his fingers, Tony could actually feel how fond he looked, looking at Steve as he shifted, settling in with his chin resting on the folded hands covering the skin of Tony's chest where the arc reactor used to reside. 

"I like sleeping with you, we've thoroughly established this." Steve's tone was teasing, but his eyes were still worried. "Talking you into napping normally feels like an accomplishment; hearing you tell me you needed to nap was unpleasant."

"I'm okay, Steve, I promise." 

"I know; I can tell. Your eyes are less pinched now. But you're still in pain." 

"No more than I would be after a particularly gruelling board meeting." 

Steve shot him an impish look, one brow raised, "When was the last time you had a particularly gruelling board meeting?" 

Tony hummed, "The one that comes to mind first is the one before we took off to Hong Kong?" 

"Okay, that one was bad." Steve agreed, smiling as he remembered that night. 

"Are you hungry?" Tony asked suddenly, and Steve blinked at the change of topic.

"I...a little, but I'm fi--" 

"I should not have talked you into coming to bed with me for so long. You should eat something." 

"Tony," voice drenched with the rising swell of fondness, Steve laid a thumb over Tony's lips to keep him silent, his fingers warm against Tony's cheek, "unlike you, I notice when I get hungry enough to need to eat something. When I get there, I'll go get something." Steve could feel the flood of warmth in Tony's cheek and he smiled, "You're a smart man; did you really think that all this time, I thought the reason you weren't feeding yourself was because you really couldn't take care of yourself? I hope to never have first-hand experience with your head, but I know enough to know that the main problem is that your head overpowers everything else when you get in the zone." 

"My dad was the same way. Only way he ever found of slowing it down was drinking." Tony's dark eyes flicked from their careful tracing of Steve's mouth to meet his gaze dead-on, and Steve drew a sharper breath with the weight of what Tony was leaving out of that equation; that Tony had managed to find a way to slow it down in him and this family that they'd built together. Howard hadn't been able to find that solace in his family, and a curl of anger flashed through Tony in remembering that. 

Steve took a deep breath, rising up to kiss his forehead, the tip of his nose, then his lips over and over again, slow and toe-curlingly sweet. Tony wrapped his arms around Steve's shoulders, sliding a leg over his waist as the kisses got slower and deeper. Moaning helplessly as Steve broke off to try to catch his breath, Tony threaded his fingers in Steve's hair, locking their lips together again before either of them could truly get their breath back. Steve ran his thumbnail up Tony's spine as he bowed off the bed to chase the kiss, and Tony shuddered, hands falling to grip Steve's biceps with a desperate little moan. Nipping at Tony's lips, Steve traced his hands over Tony's sides, teasing at the soft skin just under his ribcage, trailing a familiar line to a scar that made his breath catch every time, because it could've killed Tony decades before they'd ever met. 

Tony reached down, taking the hand from his waist and raising it, wrapping their fingers together and breaking the kiss to press kisses along Steve's knuckles, biting at the swell of flesh just under his thumb and relishing the growl he got for his trouble, Steve raising their still-clasped hands to press into the pillow above Tony's head, balancing his weight on his knees so that he could run his free hand over Tony's chest, down to wrap around them both, Tony's hiss of pleasure cut off as Steve captured his lower lip before coaxing him into another mind-bending kiss. 

As Steve's palm slicked with their precome, Tony had to break the kiss, head thrown back as the easy slide of sent jolts of pleasure through him, Steve's breathing harsh against his throat before Steve's head dropped to rest fully against Tony's shoulder, their clasped hands gripping harder as Steve ran a thumb over the bundle of nerves just under the head of Tony's cock at the same time Tony's hand slid over the particularly sensitive spot on Steve's neck, leading their mouths back together with that touch alone. Desire coiled to breaking in Tony, the ache only prodded by the way Steve's mouth moved against his. He wanted to take Steve apart. 

But Steve was concerned for his well-being, and with Extremis's little surprise, he felt like the other shoe was dropping in slow motion; he would take whatever Steve was willing to give him. 

As if he could feel the thoughts chasing themselves around in Tony’s head, Steve eased the kiss to a close, the hand holding their cocks stuttering to a halt as he breathed out a sigh, his impossibly long lashes fluttering against Tony’s skin before he raised himself enough to gaze down at Tony. Tony groaned, shaking his head and unable to meet Steve's gaze. "Stop thinking." Steve ordered, voice low and just this side of rough. He have one last slow pull before releasing them both, "I know you said you wanted to blow me, but right now I can't seem to convince myself to stop kissing you for that long." 

Tony felt like his every nerve ending came alight as Steve reached over to find the lube from the bedside table. "Steve?" 

Steve hummed, ducking back down to kiss him slowly, "Fuck me?" 

Tony moaned, capturing his lips again and blindly trying to steal the bottle of lube from Steve's hand. Steve chuckled at the attempt, breaking off to pop the lid, squeezing lube onto Tony's fingers as he shifted his hips, setting the lube aside as Tony rubbed at the lube to warm it up, rising slightly to meet Steve's lips as he reached down to ease a finger over the tight curl of muscle.

Their kisses wound down to the brush of lips as they shared air, Steve's hand tightening in his where they remained interwoven against the pillow. Somehow this felt more breathlessly intimate than any time before, and Tony felt his heart squeeze as Steve began to rock his hips against Tony's fingers, his lashes like gold as his gaze swept over Tony's face like he was reading every thought in his head before he simply smiled and kissed him again.

"I love the way you look at me." Tony whispered, and Steve arched down against him, moaning as the gentle pressure of a second finger eased against him. 

"You look at me exactly the same way." Steve replied, humming happily as Tony hooked a leg over his, then made a sound of protest as Tony slid his fingers free to urge Steve onto his back, sliding to kneel between Steve's legs. "Stop thinking, Tony." 

Sighing as he leaned back in to seal their mouths together again, Tony swallowed the moan that came when he eased his fingers back into the tight heat of Steve's body. He could almost laugh at himself; he couldn't help but wonder how the hell he had the brain capacity to wonder why he was still thinking, because the exquisite give of Steve's muscles and the flush of arounsal flooding from his cheeks to his chest was worth every scrap of attention he'd ever had access to in his life. 

"Talk to me." 

Tony kissed the request from Steve's lips, hearing the truth behind it. Steve could feel the anxiety building; that this was somehow more than all that'd come before, and that Tony had a world of things that he had to figure out before he could even think about being at ease. Steve was asking him to talk so that he could pull himself out with the empty noise, their kissing--the whole impetus of Steve's irresistible mouth--cut off so that Tony could allow himself that modicum of distance. For once in his miserable life, Tony was ready to be done with distance. 

Narrowing his whole world to the warmth of Steve's hand as it skated over his back, tugging lightly at his hair, Tony refused to stop kissing Steve until they were both dizzy for air, their foreheads leant together as they panted, Steve's hips rocking steadily against Tony's hand and small sounds of need falling unconsciously from his throat as Steve's hands started to actually tremble. 

It was a mystery how, but their hands were still locked together on the pillow, and Tony convinced himself to let himself catch enough breath to speak, "Do you want me to wear a condom?"

Steve's eyes were more black than blue already, but the question seemed to make his pupils even larger, and Tony knew the answer just with that, but needed to hear it anyway, "No--god, no condom. Just fuck me, please, Tony." 

Unprotected sex hadn't been their norm, but more and more, Tony found himself wanting to fill Steve with his cum; wanting Steve to fill him. Tony had had very strict rules for himself for years, but Steve seemed to have a gift for flouting every fucking one. 

Lining up, Tony worked himself slowly into the clutch of Steve’s body, watching Steve as he let his head fall back, mouth swollen and open on a moan and eyes only barely open, staring at Tony as if drinking him in. Tony wrapped his slick hand around Steve's cock the second he was fully wrapped in the inferno of heat, and Steve let out a moan that had Tony shivering, fighting with himself to keep from losing his carefully-laid plans. Urging in him back into an achingly sweet kiss, Steve began to rock his hips down against Tony's, trying to take control of the rhythm. Tony growled low in his throat, not so much pulling himself out of the kiss as dragging himself out of it kicking and screaming because he couldn't help but press slow, firm kisses to Steve's lips even as he tried to find a way to tell Steve to stop trying to take control. Tony had learned early in their relationship that Steve was just as susceptible to sex as a method of turning his brain off as Tony was, and Tony had then learned every trick in the book necessary to get that result, because seeing his star-spangled man with a plan lose all hope of coherency was something undeniably a requirement to his continued survival. 

Tony rolled his hips in a slow drag of friction that made Steve's entire body seize up and shudder, his cock leaking precum over Tony's fingers. Tony started and then kept up the slow, rolling thrusts; Steve whimpering at the liquid way he moved, and Tony ached for how gorgeous he was when he gave himself over like this. 

Steve licked his lips, and that was all the prompting necessary for Tony to sweep him up in a kiss. 

The slow build of pleasure felt like a building storm, gooseflesh flooding over Tony's back, and another shudder rolled through Steve as Tony traced his thumb over the head of his cock. They were both close, the tight silence stretched between them as they moved; full of things neither of them had the words to say, but neither of them needed to hear any of it to know precisely what the other wasn't saying. Tony let their kiss end, pulling back just enough to look into Steve's eyes, seeing the happiness shining there as they moved together. 

The signs came all too soon, but at that point, Tony didn't care. The tightening spiral of pleasure came to a head, and Tony groaned as they trembled together. 

Laying against Steve's side in the afterglow, Tony traced idle fingers over Steve's skin, finally able to match Steve's breathing and feeling indescribably at peace for it. Steve kissed his hair, his fingers releasing from Tony's to trace over his hand. "Who do you think will kill us the most dead if we were to elope?" Tony asked out of the blue, the question garbled with laughter. 

"My money'd be on Peggy getting Bucky to do it at this point." Steve chuckled, "But Nat and Phil might also have something to say about it." 

"I think it'd be a relief for Pepper, though Rhodey will be insufferable about not getting to walk me down the aisle." Steve snorted at that, shaking his head slightly as he massaged at Tony's scalp. 

Tony took a breath to talk, but Steve's hand skated down his back, pressing him tighter against his side, as if he already knew that Tony was going to tell him that he needed to go to the lab, to run tests on the nanotech; to figure everything out. "Stay with me." 

Tony pressed into him, laying his ear over the steady throb of Steve's heartbeat, "Like you could get rid of me."


	20. John the Revelator by Larkin Poe

Tony groaned eloquently, then shivered hard. The floor of the workshop was a poor choice for having his bones proverbially jumped, but it wasn't as if he was going to really protest. 

Steve reached over, picking him up and laying him over Steve's body to protect him from the cold concrete. "You are the one of the two of us who should not be permitted to be cold." Tony protested hazily. 

Chuckling, Steve let out a groan of his own, "Once I can feel my legs again, I'll carry you over to the couch...Why didn't we make it to the couch?" 

"Because I refused to let you carry me, and you refused to let me walk." 

"Oh, right." 

"Not that I'm complaining, but what was that for?" Tony asked innocently. 

"I was upstairs sketching...you know, everything I draw lately has turned into you?" 

"That sounds annoying." Tony commented, letting out an undignified whimper as he stretched slightly and his entire spinal column seemed to pop, vertebrae by vertebrae. "So you decided to come down and try to fuck me out of your system?" 

Steve snorted, "Yeah, like that would work. No, I decided that if I couldn't get my mind off you, I may as well sit the rest of me in your vicinity. Then you were down here experimenting with the nanotech and the armour--and do you have any idea how sexy the whole effect looks of it building itself around you?" 

"I think I have been given some idea now, yes." Tony laughed, silently thankful that Steve's timing had been quite so opportune, because had he come just five minutes earlier, he would have seen Tony testing out the durability of the nanotech armour that he was now able to produce, and Steve had classically been against Tony taking a blowtorch to his left hand. Running the data with JARVIS, they'd been able to determine that Extremis nanotech had done what it'd been meant to do in Tony's first estimations; it was increasing elasticity...but it was doing so by replacing the organic cells with the nanites, the self-replicating tech taking over the marjority of his system as his organic cells were shed over the normal course of ageing. Because of this, newly-produced nanites that had not been assigned a purpose could literally flood over his skin in order to shape his new armour, despite the fact that he had no port for them to exit through. He hadn't yet watched himself calling it forth, but if it'd been enough to drive Steve into a frenzy of lust, he was fairly confident that it was not something that would cause nightmares in any small children who would see it. 

"Okay, I think I can get us to the couch now." 

Tony grumbled, putting on a grumpy face, "You are not carrying me anywhere." 

"Can you walk?" 

"Can I? Definitely. Do I want to? You're too comfy for your own good." 

Letting out a guffaw, Steve started moving, pulling a mocking face as Tony whined. They were both immediately on their feet in the next second, however; the room splitting with the peal of the Avengers' alarm. 

Naked, Steve ran for the corner of Tony's lab dedicated to the care and keeping of Steve's suit, pulling it on with an ease that Tony would have to remember to be proud of later. Calling the suit to him instead of having it take shape out of the nanites within him, Tony followed Steve as he finished getting his scalemail on, the armour clicking fully into place, and Steve already reaching for him, his shield slotted into place slung over his back, his arms falling around Tony's shoulders as the repulsors kicked in, lifting them both. 

Extremis was already downloading the available information on the situation, and Tony's stomach swooped as the pieces unfolded. 

"Hey, Shellhead." Steve's voice was warm and fond over their commlink, and Tony blinked to try to dig himself out of the puzzle his brain was trying to put together for him despite the fact that the picture on the puzzle was proving to be one of such intense horror that Tony felt a little queasy. "Talk to me, Tony." 

Swallowing, Tony forced himself to take a breath, to find his centre, "Okay...remember when we were all adult a few months ago, and we talked about trusting SHIELD, and we fought the capital-M Man before you rode a Helicarrier into the Patomac?" 

"Yes..." 

"I...was considering implementing drone armours to get people to safety, do damage control, that kind of thing--" Tony trailed off as footage of carnage inserted itself into the feed of what they were headed into. 

"That's a brilliant idea, but I'm guessing from your tone that there's something deeper here." 

"I wasn't exactly working on it, but I had a concept for it and a rough outline...of an AI-run armour that could've replaced me." Tony managed, "From what it looks like we're headed into...someone took my rough outline and made it real." 

"...What?" Steve sounded horrified, and Tony was aware of the rising panic within him, "How would someone even get that kind of information?" 

That was a fantastic question; JARVIS gave a little nudge through Extremis that he'd been working on exactly that since correlating the data to see that it was Tony's work at its core. Now, JARVIS provided the answer with all the seething chagrin of someone who would not be fooled again, "Hill wormed her way into a job at SI after we took down SHIELD...she's been working under a false name, and she had access to the company system, and the project was saved to the company servers instead of my private ones." 

"SHIELD hacked you?" The incredulity in Steve's voice was neither gratifying, nor devastating; but only because the two cancelled each other out. 

"I can’t technically kill a dead man, right? Like, I could hunt down Nick Fury and skin him alive and it’d be fine because he’s dead?” 

Steve let out a speculative sound as they alit on the quinjet, Natasha signalling to Tony that she needed him to take her place in flying the thing while Clint struggled with his quiver and sniffled miserably. 

“Clint, why are you spreading your cold to the rest of the team?” Tony chastised, grinning because it was exactly what he would have done many times were it not for the air filters in the suit. 

“Fuck you, Stark.” Clint grumbled, though with how thoroughly his nose was clogged his ‘f’ sounded more like a ‘p’. 

“Steve, what say we quit this team and start a new one with actual adults?” Natasha offered, but there was laughter in her voice as she fixed Clint’s quiver and manhandled him forcibly into a chair, strapping him in a little too tightly if the alarmed whimper was anything to go by. 

_“How the hell did Steve Rogers end up with a reputation for being an adult?”_ Bucky asked over the comms, sounding intensely disappointed by this turn of events. _“This is the man who made the conscious decision to run around with a shield the size of a dinner plate in the most ridiculous fucking costume the propagandists could come up with.”_

Tony tried valiantly and failed miserably to hold back a snort of laughter, unaided when Steve let out something dangerously close to a growl in response to that. "He has a point about the size of the shield, Steve. You should've been shot in the legs so many times." Clint croaked, the words garbled as if they'd been put through a garbage disposal, but they could all get the gist. 

"I hear you're the man to thank for Steve's innate ability to tuck most of his body behind the shield, Barnes." Tony piped up. 

_"I did my best. Peggy helped."_

"Ah, the familiar refrain." Tony sighed, laughing. His mirth was cut short as a ping came up from the depths of code he and JARVIS were running, alerting Tony that someone was trying to brute force their way into his tech. "Hey, Barnes, I need you to go get a gun or eight and take Peggy to Bruce's lab." 

_"What?"_ Bucky hissed, and Tony pulled up the details on the system attack, cocking a brow to himself. Steve's hand landed on his shoulder, and he shook his head minutely. 

"The tech...it's been corrupted, just like Stane's body, but Hammer's not the only one who left some gross fingerprints on it. Whoever's taken over on it thinks that they're good enough to try to brute-force their way through my systems and get access to my JARVIS and my suits." 

"Are they?" Natasha piped up. 

Tony smiled a slow, evil smile that would have made even Steve squirm if he could see through the helmet to get an eyeful, "No." 

_"That is a dangerous tone of voice if ever I taught one to you, Tony. Tell me you're about to bring someone to their knees."_ Peggy came over Bucky's line, and Tony's grin only grew. 

"The problem Stane found with diluting my tech was that it was still my tech." Tony replied easily, "If you guys can get people to safety, and Barnes and Aunt Pegs can sell the lie that they're scared for their lives to distract whoever it is, I can shut them down...explosively." 

"You're gonna out-think an AI? One of _your_ AIs?" 

"Clint, the doubt in your voice hurts me, it really does. Shut up." 

Tony set up a dummy feed that would allow the viewer to see Peggy and Barnes hunkered down in Bruce's labs, Peggy playing up looking worriedly over at Tony's lab, and he and JARVIS set the trap; an empty server set up to look like Tony's inner sanctum, but hollow and empty as a haunted house, cloaking the real servers by being the first stop behind the flashiest of his security measures. _"How's this, darling?"_

"Good, but I may need to let them think that they've cracked my system. If I'm right, they're probably going to try to make my armour come after you two. I'll let you know what they try to make the armours do, but my money's on going for you directly through the walls--" 

"Which will drive the armours directly into the nanobots." Steve filled in, sounding somewhat awed. 

"Just try not to be alarmed." Tony requested, “Or, really, not _too_ alarmed.” 

_”Just alarmed enough to make it look good; not alarmed enough to give me an actual heartattack.”_

“Precisely.” Tony barked a laugh, “Think you’re up to the task?” 

Peggy let out the most unladylike snort she could muster, and Tony grinned to himself, sending her a warm, fond feeling that had been building up in his chest since she had elected to all-but move in with the Avengers in order to give Bucky someone to lean on with a semblance of sanity. 

"We'll get everyone to safety...is there anything else you need?" Steve asked quietly. 

"If...if this works, it might not be Peggy and Bucky he goes after first." Tony told him carefully, and those bright eyes flashed with an understanding that spoke of just how tactically brilliant the man was. 

"I trust you." Steve whispered, and Tony simply fell forward, locking him in a kiss that was necessarily short, but couldn't have been deeper. Sounding dazed and looking debauched, Steve's lashes fluttered back open, a grin curling at his lips as he levied the challenge, "'M always proud of you, but...make me prouder?" 

"Sir yes, sir." Tony purred, already letting his brain sink back into the code. "Let's have some _fun_."


	21. Heaven by OneRepublic

The feel of Steve in his arms was always a comfort, but as they bit out tearful and utterly fake goodbyes over the comms, Tony sent a silent prayer that Steve wouldn't honestly surrender himself to being killed by the suit because fighting back would hurt Tony; because if he would surrender himself that easily, then Tony was going to have to have a nice, long talk with Bucky Barnes about their punk. And Tony would tell Steve beforehand that he would, too; he had the inexplicable feeling that waiting for Tony and Bucky to team up against him would be worse for Steve than the actual team up could ever be. 

The plan had, of course, been perfect. Tony's plans for an AI to pilot the armour had been created with Rhodey's biggest complaint against drones, and so Tony hadn't made it in JARVIS's all-knowing image, what little of it he had gotten around to making. Instead, the AI acted in the same way a human would; the same downfalls, and the same foibles. 

Tony knew that the fingerprints on the code had been left there because someone whose code was usually pure elegance had gotten frustrated in trying to merge his genius with their elegance and had finally slammed the two together until they had a semblance of sticking. Tony was not one for elegance at the best of times; he was an engineer first, and was firmly of the belief that if you could get the job done in half the time with half the mess, even if it didn't look as sleek up front, then that's what you did. Polishing was for later; for other people when he'd been building weapons, and for the times when he needed to shut off conscious thought and simply _work_ once he had the armour to work on.

Pretending that the hacker being the AI had taken over his suit in a bid to take Steve out and prove to himself that he'd done it--because forcing Tony to kill the love of his life would undoubtedly be worth gloating over--was too easy; Tony'd patched a comm line and gave access to the dummy servers for them to have their dramatic moment over. Tony, jerking in the suit as if trying to wrest its control back as he tried to warn Steve that there was something wrong, he had to get everyone else out--and then when the command to dive had come through, Tony had dove, putting as much fear into his voice as he could muster as he tried not to snort at the easy way Steve had just kind of hopped into his hold rather than suffer any bruises in letting Tony actually run into him. It was a move they'd pretty much perfected at this point--mostly because Steve Rogers was a thrill-seeking maniac who loved to fly but refused to let Tony build him a goddamned suit. 

Steve had one arm wrapped around Tony's shoulders, Tony's knees bent slightly so that Steve had very nearly seated himself against Tony's side. What Tony had neglected to tell him was that he'd put a locking mechanism into Steve's suit to make sure that Steve was securely at his side until Tony triggered the mechanism to release the catch. As they flew, Tony could very nearly feel Steve's hand squeeze at his shoulder, the excitement bubbling under the surface that was the same every time they flew together. JARVIS was closing in on the hacker, and Tony laid it on that he was fighting the suit's commands to climb higher, trying to urge Steve to fight him while they were low enough that the fall wouldn't hurt him too badly, and Steve managed to make the shaking laughter in his voice pass as nervousness even though he moved into his embrace, tucking his face against the neck of the suit, the hand not squeezing his shoulder moving to curve around his neck, thumb stroking over the line of Iron Man's jaw in a way that Tony wished he could feel. Shifting his grip, Tony didn't help his grin as he reached down and goosed Steve, cutting out the comm entirely as he snorted into laughter at Steve's indignant squeak. Steve pulled his face out of Tony's neck, glancing around to see if any of the rogue robots were left disengaged enough to be watching before smacking Tony's ass in retaliation--despite his ass being armour-plated, and Tony could feel Steve's laughter even though he couldn't see or hear it. Tony felt his love for Steve swell until it felt like he was going to break with it; this man in his arms more precious to him than he had ever known was possible. The love that Edwin and Ana had shared was true, he knew enough to know that much, but to witness the love from the outside was nothing compared to being in a love like they had been. Steve kept his face turned to take in the scenery, unprotected from the wind, and as JARVIS signalled that they were going to have to start to climb, Tony engaged a security precaution he'd built into Steve's cowl, a mask clicking into place over his nose and mouth to make sure there was a supply of oxygen for him, just in case. Tony was just thankful that Steve had actually bothered to wear the damn thing. 

Shooting him a look over the top of the mask, Steve tapped his ear, and Tony re-opened the comm channel that the hacker could listen to, and Steve and he started the charade anew, Tony's heart squeezing in his chest when Steve told him that his only regret was not getting to actually be Tony's husband. 

From there, the words came easily; Tony spun plans that he'd had simmering in the back of his mind since he'd asked Steve to marry him. Plans that had come from a serious dislike of the available options to them when it came to getting married. Full elopement wasn't an option, of course--Pepper would kill them both in the most gruesome way she could think of, and Tony didn't even want to consider just how gruesome Pepper could get. JARVIS gave a sprinkling of static over Steve's laugh when Tony mentioned this, and Tony felt a renewed wave of gratitude for his greatest creation. 

Tony told Steve that Phil had been ordained for years; that Rhodey was in Washington, and could be with them with a single call; Bucky and Peggy were already in New York, and the team was the rest of the family they had. They could get married the second the Quinjet touched down in New York; no pomp, circumstance, nor press involved. He could send Pepper a ping and get her to apply for their marriage license, and the party they could just have later, or never at all if Steve didn't want one. The more he talked about it, the more he wanted it; just thinking about the wedding planning had been enough to give him a headache, but if they just had their family there, no one else, and no other expectations, that was all that mattered. Steve seemed to sense this as they did a slow barrel roll over the fight below, squeezing Tony's shoulder again before promising that if they made it out of this, then they absolutely would get married as soon as they reached the workshop--after all, Steve reminded him, it wouldn't be fair to the bots not to be included in Tony's list of family. Steve settled against his side, and Tony didn't have to see anything more than his eyes to know that he was grinning wildly, his features so purely happy that Tony sent the ping to Pepper and sent Coulson a text requesting his services for a ceremony. 

In the back of his mind, JARVIS let out a virtual nod that they had climbed to a high enough altitude for the part of Tony's plan that JARVIS most disagreed with and that they were close enough to closing in on the hacker for that altitude to be of use--and Tony was going to find himself with more grey hairs than brown ones after this, but he flipped the faceplate up, the cold a slap before he ducked forward for a kiss, then forced himself to let go. 

The fall was nothing Steve didn't regularly chase, he knew, and as he felt JARVIS go in for the kill against the hack that would have forced him to sweep Steve up and drop him without a parachute, with Thor tied down by the evacuations and Hulk busy smashing rogue drones out of the air, Tony went into a dive faster than Steve's freefall; his armour disassembling itself as they fell, and Steve shot him a look of such utter fury as it formed around him that Tony could only bark a laugh, the slide of the nanotech shivering over him faster than it had in the lab, though JARVIS reminded him, almost boredly because he'd mentioned it twelve times before, that they hadn't actually gotten to the point of testing out whether or not the nanotech repulsors could sustain enough power to _fly_.

As the armour formed around Steve, the breathless dive of falling to earth had Tony wishing he could let out a whoop, as he had that first time he'd flown; the exhilaration like a supernova in his chest. 

JARVIS reported that the changes he'd made to the suit--pack-away plating that essentially allowed the suit to grow or shrink as he needed it-- had, indeed, been enough to comfortably fit Steve, who was too busy tearing Tony a new one over the comms to notice that the nanotech had completely encased the love of his life, and the repulsor technology that Tony could feel as a gentle weight in his palms and the soles of his feet came alive, his lungs filling with air at last as the world around him jerked softly with the familiar fight against gravity. There was no HUD for JARVIS to present what was going on, but Tony closed his eyes and let Extremis unfold around him, it was as if he was the suit cocooning around Steve; as if he was his lab and the humming power of his tech. 

JARVIS alerted him that the robotic body that the AI had been poured into was on a collision course with him. He was without his usual array of weapons, but JARVIS had his back, as he always did, piloting the suit with Steve still yelling inside it, and listening as JARVIS calmly explained what was happening to the increasingly alarmed superhero he'd taken hostage. Tony felt shaky, as if his blood sugar was dropping, and he knew he had to stop using the nanotech soon because for as much as it could power itself normally, the creation of the repulsors and armour was drawing from _him_. 

Reporting that he had cut off the AI's uplink to the hacker, effectively trapping it within its parts, JARVIS fired off an explosive as he raced the suit towards Tony to intercept the robot from reaching Tony. The rocket was dodged, and Tony grit his teeth, continuing his controlled dive as JARVIS filled Steve in on his plan once they got close enough to the ground for it to work. Tony could hear Steve yell that he could take the leap, and although JARVIS confirmed that he _could_ that didn't mean that he _should_ , and Tony wasn't about to risk him, not now. 

Once they were actually in range, Tony stopped to a hover, grinning as Steve launched himself out of the armour beside him, the armour forming back around Tony in time for him to turn and face the twisted reflection of his creation. Below, Steve's shield was thrown back to him from a young girl helping Widow evacuate a bus of school children, and as Steve started laying down orders to the other Avengers, Tony grinned. Firing a series of repulsor blasts before launching another missile, Tony landed lightly next to Steve as the android tumbled out of the sky, raging at him. 

"Hey, gorgeous. Care to dance?"


End file.
